


Go Your Own Way

by tkp (lettered)



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan)
Genre: Angst, Daddy Issues, Daddy Kink, Dirty Talk, M/M, PWP, Porn, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-08
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-10 01:33:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 42,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/93762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettered/pseuds/tkp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here's what I started with:</p><p>I want to see a fic where instead of Wayne taking Gordon to expensive restaurants and driving him around in fancy cars and dressing him up in designer clothes, Gordon takes Wayne around to diners with sticky tables where they serve shitty coffee, and to his postage stamp apartment with its single spring bed, and Wayne wears Gordon's cheap t-shirts and sweats and worn out boxers, and Gordon makes eggs and eats noodles out of a pan, and goes for jogs in ratty sneakers to pick up cheap cigarettes and Wayne can't get the smell out of his $5,000 suit for a week. Oh, and it turns Bruce on.</p><p>Again, not a lot of plot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The chrome and trailer hitch bit is from "Electric Horseman".

It started in late summer, when the GCPD opened investigation of Wayne Enterprises for its involvement with Lau. Gordon had a hand in the inquiry, but did not make it as far as Wayne Tower. He supposed that was just as well, because Bruce Wayne didn't make it that far either. Off buying an island in the tropics, or something.

Meanwhile Gordon was busy with Batman, who was tracking drug trade through Columbia. The FBI was turning a blind eye, and Batman was all Gordon had, so Wayne wasn't high up on the Commissioner's priorities. By the time Batman was back, Wayne had apparently gotten wind of the investigation on Wayne Enterprises, because the next day he strolled into the precinct with a suntan and a smile. He possessed all the leisure and innocence of a man with nothing to be accountable for, except buying islands for no other reason than that he could.

"I leave for a week to buy Tahiti, and the whole office falls apart," Wayne joked, holding his hand out.

Gordon was nothing if not polite, so he shook it. "You work in an office?" he said, not unkindly, though exhaustion might have shown in his voice. Batman had delivered the necessary intel in the wee hours of this morning, and Gordon had been working ever since.

"Ouch. Hit me where it hurts," Wayne said. "Is the company in trouble?"

"Your executives answered most our questions."

Wayne flashed white teeth. "Well, if you have any more, I'll tell you all I know."

Gordon wondered whether that was a joke he was meant to laugh at. He settled for returning a smile. "If you're willing, we could review the info they gave us. A matter of form. You understand we don't have a warrant, Mr. Wayne. You're under no obligation."

"Bruce," Wayne said, and, "Coffee."

If Gordon had thought about it, it might have sounded like a demand, like a wayward child. But Gordon didn't think about it, because he didn't care, and Wayne was just another investigation, file on his desk, no matter whether he was worth a couple billion dollars and was used to getting his way.

So Gordon headed for the diner on 45th, because that's where the force got coffee. He didn't really care that Wayne kept glancing at him in amusement, though he did notice, because Wayne Enterprises was a file that Gordon wanted closed. He took the trouble of parsing out what was so funny: probably that when Wayne said coffee he meant a hundred dollar French café. But Wayne seemed content to laugh at him and follow rather than protest, so Gordon didn't trouble any more. Coffee was coffee and if Wayne wanted some fancy cappuccino thing he was going to have to speak up.

Instead when they sat down in the vinyl booth, Wayne opened up the plastic menu and said, "What's good here?"

Gordon snorted, and the waitress made a face and told them to hurry up.

She was over sixty with dyed orange hair, blue eye-shadow, and a surly temper, and Wayne proceeded to flirt shamelessly with her while Gordon tried to order coffee. Then Wayne ordered what seemed to be the entire breakfast menu, and despite his syrupy sweet request for extra syrup, the waitress just grunted and said, "That all?"

"For now." Wayne said, winked, and handed her the menu. "There may be more later."

"It's three in the afternoon," Gordon pointed out, some time after the waitress had gone.

"I just woke up. I need my victuals. Alfred says."

"Alfred?"

"Bane of my existence. Don't scold, Commissioner Gordon; I had a late night."

"Who's scolding?" Gordon snorted again. "I don't care."

For a moment Wayne looked blank. Then the waitress was there and he broke into a smile, touching her thick wrist unnecessarily in thanks as she put down his coffee. The waitress told him to watch himself or he'd have eggs down his front, and Wayne demurred, suitably chastised, true fear in his eyes.

Feeling as though he had been rude, Gordon tried to make up for it by feigning interest. "Does buying Tahiti really keep you up all hours?"

"It wasn't all of Tahiti," Wayne said modestly.

Gordon wasn't even sure how to pretend to engage in small talk when the person sitting across from you said things like that, so he sipped his coffee and stopped pretending.

"But that's not what you're interested in." Wayne's words were sudden, as if he'd read Gordon's mind. "You want to know how Lau was involved with the company."

"That's the gist." Gordon put down his coffee. "Your executives say Lau was interested in moving some of his products through Wayne Shipping. Then when the deal was going to be signed, Lau left the country. Mr. Fox followed him to Hong Kong, but there were issues in the contract so the deal was tabled. You know the rest. Lau mysteriously reappears in Gotham, is subsequently arrested—"

"Mysterious, yes," Wayne said around a pancake, and smirked with his mouth full at Gordon.

The media had been rife with speculation; the city had assumed Lau had returned because Batman had fetched him back, but Gordon shrugged and said, "I don't know anything about that."

"Part of that's a lie." Wayne took another bite of pancake.

Gordon didn't tense. People assumed because he was a clean cop, he never lied; they were wrong. "I honestly don't—"

"I meant the line the Wayne executives fed you; part was a lie. You deserve the truth."

Still, Gordon didn't bat a lash, which was maybe a more difficult, but he was not only a clean cop but a good one, and didn't let on when he was surprised by anything. "Oh?" was all he said, and raised a brow.

"There was never going to be a deal," Wayne said. "Fox looked at Lau's numbers and decided something wasn't right about them. Lucius doesn't much like criminals—" another bite of pancake—"and I wouldn't want the company to be involved in any illegal activity, of course." He said the last like he was pandering, and polished off his pancake. "So anyway, there was nothing to table. There was never any contract."

Gordon was silent for a moment, turning his coffee cup around. He wished he could have a cigarette. "Why didn't your executives say that?"

"It was the company line. Confidentiality or something. They didn't have real dirt, so they thought they could sweep it under the table."

Gordon turned his cup some more. "I'm assuming Mr. Fox isn't the only one who doesn't like criminals," he said finally.

Wayne was busy with his eggs. "When my parents got shot," he said, very casually, as if mentioning the salt or pepper, "you were at the station."

"I wouldn't have thought you'd remember." Gordon remembered, because everyone knew the Waynes, but his own face had to have been one among many anonymous others.

"You were nice to me," Wayne said. "I didn't know what to think about anything else, but I never forgot that."

Gordon watched Wayne steadily put away the eggs. The man ate like he hadn't had anything to eat since the day before. "You say Lau's numbers were suspect?" he asked at last, because that was what Wayne had made this about. "Does Mr. Fox still have them?"

"Probably. I don't know anything about it, just what Lucius told me. Do you need them?"

"That'd be nice," Gordon said carefully. "As before, legally you're not bound to."

"I want to. Want some bacon?"

Gordon shook his head, and the waitress came to refill their cups.

"This is delicious coffee," Wayne told her. "Really. Did you brew it yourself?"

"When pigs fly," the waitress said.

"You're a sweetheart," Wayne tried.

The waitress grabbed the pancake plate and stomped off.

Gordon looked at Wayne skeptically. "This is the shittiest coffee I've ever had," he pointed out.

"It is?" Wayne took a swig. "I hadn't noticed."

He was starting in on the bacon and sausage, and Gordon noticed for the first time Wayne was sitting in what had to be at least a five thousand dollar suit at a sticky formica table, in a booth whose creases were caked with maple syrup. It was vaguely amusing, particularly because Wayne would have had to have gotten over whatever compunctions he might have had pretty quick. Or else he was enjoying slumming it.

Gordon was interested now, despite himself, maybe for the irony, or because Wayne had taken the trouble to be honest and to have a good memory. "You really own part of Tahiti?" he asked.

Wayne looked up in surprise, something simpler in his smile than had been there before. "Well, that's not all I was doing."

"You said I deserved the truth."

"I did." Wayne started playing with the whipcream and strawberry on his waffle, which, thank god, he did not look like he was going to attempt to wolf down. "She was about five-nine," Wayne said, the simplicity disappearing into a smirk. "Bright eyes, wavy hair. Liked volley ball and martinis, could suck the chrome off a trailer-hitch."

Gordon was surprised into snorted laughter, and somewhere in there Wayne's smirk had turned diabolical.

He kept playing with the strawberry while Gordon swallowed and shook his head, then Wayne said, "I can get them by the end of the week, if we have them. Lau's numbers," he clarified.

"I'll send someone," Gordon said. "Or Mr. Fox could—"

Wayne cut him off. "I'll bring them."

"You don't have to—"

"No, I'm sure they're important, and Fox probably thinks they're sensitive. I should be doing something, shouldn't I? I mean, it's my name on the building. I'm alright with errand boy."

He seemed to be waiting for an answer, the way he was looking at Gordon, twisting the strawberry again and again in the whipcream. "It's your life," Gordon said mildly, not knowing what Wayne wanted, but knowing he wasn't a part of it.

"Right." Abruptly, Wayne pushed the plate away. He fished a bill from his wallet and stood. "Thanks for lunch."

"You paid," Gordon said, still mild, rising also. "And you're going to need change."

"Let her keep it," Wayne said. "Make her day, feed the kids, buy the groceries."

Gordon raised a sardonic brow. "Not because she's a sweetheart?"

Wayne shrugged. "Maybe she is to someone. I'll see you, Commissioner."

Wayne walked out. Gordon blinked down at the bill on the table for a moment, then headed back to work.

* * *

It had been a long late summer night. The drug ring seemed to move along the lines of Gambol's thugs, but there'd been very little evidence until now. Gordon had had to meet with Batman a safe distance from the precinct, which meant coming all the way back to the MCU once the Bat had handed over the evidence he'd collected. After another hour spent processing, Gordon was finally headed home, when he heard the night watch saying, "I'm sorry, Mr. Wayne. The Commissioner's just left."

Gordon gave serious thought to making that be true. What should have stopped him was Lau's numbers, getting the information and closing the investigation on Wayne Enterprises—but that wasn't it. It was the thought of Bruce Wayne eating runny eggs in that ridiculously expensive suit and telling Gordon he hadn't forgotten the night his parents were murdered.

Gordon turned around and pushed the door back open. "I'm still here, Peterson," he told the officer on duty. He turned to the other man standing there. "Mr. Wayne."

"Bruce," said Wayne. His suit looked even more ridiculously expensive than before, if that was possible. It was a tux; he must have come from some kind of party. He must also have appeared very neat earlier—suave, Gordon supposed—but after all the debauchery or whatever else billionaires got up to, he looked like he'd just recently thrown his clothes on. The coat was open and the bow-tie loose about his neck; his hair was mussed and his mouth looked bruised. "I have the files I said I'd bring you," Wayne said. "Were you going home?"

"Do you know what time it is?" Gordon asked.

"No. Is it late?" Wayne looked honestly surprised. Which was no surprise to Gordon, because as partied out as Wayne looked, he did not look like he felt an inch of the exhaustion Gordon did. He looked like he could go all night. "I didn't notice," Wayne said. "I don't want to keep you. We can do this another day."

"Come on to my office." Gordon turned, and Wayne followed him through the precinct to the elevator. "How did you even know I'd be here at this hour?" Gordon said.

"Well, like I said, I wasn't keeping track of time." There was a silence, Wayne shifting his weight, when suddenly he added, "I guess you sort of seem like the person who would. Be at the office all night, I mean."

"The office," Gordon repeated, because office work wasn't what kept a police officer who did his duty up all night. Of course, the real reason he was here was Batman's nocturnal timing, but Gordon didn't bother to elaborate. The elevator dinged and they went to his office. Gordon flicked on the lights and hung up his coat. "Guess it takes one to know one."

"A night owl?" Wayne asked. "Good call." As Gordon sat behind his desk, Wayne stayed standing, saying, "There were . . . a lot of White Russians, and belly dancers, and a movie star, I think. Possibly Twister . . . I left before it got really good."

"No one who could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch?" Gordon had to pretend to be interested again, though last time it had made him laugh. He was just too tired.

"Probably a few."

"Amazing you could tear yourself away," Gordon said without much interest.

Wayne rifled through the breast of his coat pocket and pulled out a disc. "Here are those numbers on Lau."

"Thanks." Gordon took the disc. "I'll have a team go over it."

"Will they help?" Wayne said. "Fox said he thought you got everything you needed from Lau before the break-out. Or were the records of his confession destroyed by the bomb?"

"Did you start watching the news?" Gordon said bluntly, forgetting his manners. At Wayne's blank expression, he elaborated. "You hit us. In a Lamborghini. You didn't seem to know; the man in the car was—"

"That." Wayne frowned in remembrance. "Never did make that cocktail party. The body shop wasn't thrilled."

Gordon didn't say anything, because he didn't know anything about Lamborghinis.

"Yeah, I watched the news," Wayne said. "You seemed to think I should. Didn't you?"

"It's just what I do," Gordon deferred. "I'm a cop. I keep informed."

"You're more than informed," Wayne said, something oddly detached in his voice. "You're here at three thirty in the morning, helping people, keeping Gotham safer. Fighting the bad guys."

"It isn't as romantic as all that," Gordon said. "It's my job. My choice."

Wayne pocketed two diamond cufflinks he'd deftly removed, was silent again, then said, "You'd have got on well with my father."

Oh, Gordon thought, something finally snapping into focus. _Oh._

Gordon was tired, and sick of work and the city and fighting the bad guys Bruce Wayne seemed to think were merely bogey men under his bed. This wasn't part of Gordon's job description; it wasn't part of keeping Gotham safe, either, and he just wanted to go home.

But the impulse to be kind had always been a weakness of his.

"Your father would have been proud," Gordon said. "He would no matter who you are."

"What about you?" Wayne pressed. "Think I'm wasting my life? Lots of people do. Rachel did."

Gordon knew a couple Rachels, couldn't think which of them might have known Wayne; that wasn't why he shook his head. "I don't—"

"Think about it," Wayne interrupted. "The booze, the parties, the chrome, the trailer-hitches." He was making the typical jokes, but his voice was flat.

Gordon sighed. "You want me to disapprove? I don't. I said before, it's your life." He went over to put on his coat. "You want me to hope for better? That we each of us can be better than who we are? I do. Always."

Wayne clinked the cufflinks in his pocket, watching as Gordon fastened his coat. "There's something else I wanted to talk to you about."

Almost expecting it, Gordon nodded. "Alright. But if it can wait, I'm tired." And possibly you're drunk, he didn't add. "I was on my way home."

"Of course," Wayne said smoothly. "I was too. Which way are you going?"

"I was just going to take the rail."

"Perfect, then. So was I."

Gordon was too tired to protest, and as before, Wayne seemed content to follow. It wasn't exactly police practice to ride home with men whose companies were under investigation, even if he wasn't a suspect, but Gordon didn't see how Wayne could possibly be a threat. It wasn't Gordon's practice to let stray puppies trail around after him, either, but sometimes these things happened.

"My father built this," Wayne said, when they'd boarded the rail. Gordon had sat down, but Wayne was still standing, looking around the train.

"I remember," Gordon said.

"When I was little, and he told me that, I thought he meant with his two hands."

Gordon thought he should laugh, but couldn't summon up the will. "My kids still think I'm a cop like the ones on TV."

"You have kids?" Wayne's interest seemed perked.

Gordon leaned his head back on the glass of the window behind him, and shut his eyes. "What did you want to talk to me about?" he murmured.

The train rattled along, the lights flickering as they passed through different parts of Gotham. "I want to do something like this train," Wayne said finally.

"Do you?" Gordon didn't open his eyes. Then he told Wayne the latest representative lobbying for better public transportation, and that he would probably want to talk to her.

"I'm not talking about public transportation," Wayne said. "Or not specifically. I'm talking about something worthwhile."

Gordon hummed, and told him there were many appropriate charitable institutions, and civil service centers, and that there were possibly even people in his own social circle who practiced philanthropy.

"You're not taking me seriously," Wayne said.

Gordon at last cracked open his eyes. Wayne had a hand in his pocket, crinkling the rich fabric, his other hand on the metal handlebar above him. His loose bow-tie flapped with the train; his eyes were intense as they peered down at Gordon. He looked like something in a men's fashion magazine, with the juxtaposition of graffiti and dirty train behind him.

"I'll believe it when I see it," Gordon told him simply.

Wayne's eyes softened. "This—what you see—isn't all there is to me."

Wondering how many times Wayne used that line, Gordon thought the sad thing about it was that Wayne believed it. A part of Wayne was and wanted to be that sensitive boy who'd cried over his parents and looked up to Gordon that fateful night. Wayne had probably delivered the line to the Rachel he had mentioned. Maybe he'd known Dawes somehow. If he did, she would have told him that just because he remembered being an innocent didn't mean he was one.

Of course, Wayne was asking for a chance to say it, to make someone believe it. He'd asked Gordon to judge him more than once. It made Gordon wonder whether Bruce Wayne's famous indiscretions weren't half an act to earn disapproval, from someone, anyone, because that was the closest he could come to attention that was in some way parental.

But Gordon wasn't Thomas Wayne, or Rachel Dawes. He was just Gordon, tired and polite. "What did you have in mind, Mr. Wayne?"

"I keep telling you: Bruce."

"Bruce, then."

Wayne looked down at him, more magazine than ever. "Maybe a donation to your department."

Gordon took off his glasses and started cleaning them. "I'm sure it would be much appreciated."

"Something specific," Wayne said. "Equipment, a crime lab, infrared cameras for squad cars." Wayne went on. To Gordon's surprise, some of the things he mentioned were equipment GCPD had been lobbying for for months. Some were new, cutting edge technologies in the forensics and law enforcement fields.

Gordon put his glasses back on.

Seeing his expression, Wayne smiled ruefully. "You said to watch the news."

"They're not talking about OPS lasers on the news," Gordon pointed out.

"_CSI_, then." Wayne shrugged. "_Law and Order_. One of those."

Gordon hesitated. "This is my stop," he said.

"Okay."

Wayne followed him off the train. It was another two blocks to Gordon's apartment. "Your family lives here?" Wayne asked.

Gordon shook his head. "The kids live with their mother." Before he could ask, because Wayne was nosy and seemed to think this was more than it was, Gordon said, "We divorced."

"Recent?" Wayne sounded politely sympathetic.

"A few months."

"Was it because you died?"

Instead of answering, Gordon told Wayne who he could talk to if he wanted to make a donation for specific equipment for the GCPD. The grant writer at City Hall was very obliging. "Anything else I can help you with?" Gordon asked, as they approached his front door.

"I didn't mean to pry," Wayne said.

He had, but Gordon didn't bother disputing him. "You might as well come in, since you're here."

Gordon keyed open the door, turned on the lights, hung up his coat. Went straight for the fridge, as usual, for his tomato juice. Remembered his manners just before drinking out of the plastic container, and asked, "Want some?"

Wayne was smiling to himself. "No thanks."

Gordon nodded and took a sip. Wayne no longer looked quite so GQ; the background wasn't dingy and dark enough for the juxtaposition to take effect. Here he just looked out of place, tux mismatched with the casual surroundings, though he did not look uncomfortable.

Gordon doubted Wayne ever looked uncomfortable.

Gordon supposed he himself should feel uncomfortable, with Wayne looking about, honest curiosity on his face. It wasn't that it was a bad apartment. It was closer to downtown than Barbara ever would have wanted, but far enough away that he could still afford it. The place was clean, though not neat; it looked lived in. It wasn't the most elegant, but nor was it barren. It couldn't even be called homey; it was just . . . very regular, serviceable, somewhere someone lived not much, but enough. Next to Wayne, though—even with the billionaire in his rumpled suit, loose cuffs, thick, unruly hair—it looked a shambles.

Gordon went on drinking juice from the carton. If it had been Barbara, she would have told him he was a packrat, and should clean up the papers he left in piles behind him wherever he went, like a prairie dog. There might have been other rodent references involved. Gordon should have been glad of this one freedom at least, the liberty to collect junk and leave messes around the house, but instead he missed her censure. But anyway, it wasn't Barbara, and Gordon didn't much care what anyone else thought of the place. It was his, and it worked.

But when Wayne finally turned back, having surveyed Gordon's old TV set (Barbara had taken the HD), James's crayon drawing, and the ashtray on the window sill, he looked somehow satisfied. "Do I get a tour?" he asked.

Gordon put the juice away. He remembered what he'd thought earlier that week, at the diner, that maybe Bruce Wayne enjoyed slumming it. It wasn't that, he thought now. It was that Bruce Wayne liked to pretend he wasn't any different, which was somehow worse.

Gordon walked to the dark hall at the back of the main room and kitchen, and flicked on another light. He showed Wayne the study, with its mahogany desk that had been a gift from long ago, the file cabinets, more book shelves. The bathroom. The bedroom, with its single bed, because that was all he needed, and the chest of drawers that was one half of what had been a set.

"Cozy," Wayne said, looking at the bed.


	2. Chapter 2

They did not have sex that night.

The thought didn't cross Gordon's mind, despite Wayne inviting himself to go home with him so late in the evening. Gordon had been too tired to really assess Wayne's motives, and he'd thought Wayne was drunk. It didn't occur to him until the next morning, when he walked from the rail station to the MCU and saw the Ferrari parked along the street. It wasn't every day the sort of people who drove Ferraris visited the precinct, or this block. It had to be Wayne's.

Of course Bruce Wayne didn't go around riding the rail home, even if his father had built it. Wayne had driven the Ferrari to the MCU, but left it for an excuse to go home with Gordon. It was just the sort of lie you used to get laid, even though driving someone home in a Ferrari was more of an excuse and less of a lie, and probably ended up in more of a lay, if you were the type to get turned on by riches or fast cars. Which Gordon wasn't—though maybe Wayne guessed that, straight-laced as Gordon was.

Though he couldn't think he was that straight, considering.

Gordon could see the Ferrari from his office. Despite all the work he had to do accounting for the evidence Batman had delivered the night before, Gordon kept an eye on the car when he could—cop's instinct, maybe, or curiosity. He didn't expect to know what went on in the brains of the likes of Wayne anyway, but deserting your Ferrari in this part of town, even within sight of the precinct, was more of a mystery than even Wayne should account for.

Late in the afternoon—Wayne was probably just waking up, and Gordon happened to have a spare moment in his office—a Bentley pulled up beside the Ferrari. Wayne got out, and that should have been that, except once the Bentley drove off Wayne came up to the building instead of his car.

Several minutes later, Wayne was in Gordon's office in a white linen suit and dark sunglasses, probably to evade his own personal paparazzi. He made Gordon tired, all that luxury and ease, the way he looked like a long, tall glass of liquid you could throw back and just keep drinking, if you didn't choke on how smooth it went down. It made Gordon want to sigh and throw up his hands, to give up or ask, _What do you _want_?_

Instead he said—stiffly, because thinking all that about the liquid and giving up had made Gordon realize the answer was simple, and Occam's Razor suggested Wayne was looking for a fuck—"How can I help you, Mr. Wayne?"

"Bruce." Wayne flashed teeth and took off his sunglasses. "I had some ideas. About last night."

Gordon bet he did, until he realized Wayne was at least ostensibly referring to the grant project he'd been babbling about. "I'm glad to hear it," Gordon said prefunctorily.

"I thought we could talk about them. Want another coffee?"

For a moment, Gordon actually considered the offer. All of it. "I can't," he said, not really regretting it, but kind because he couldn't be any other way. "I have a lot of work today."

Despite being disappointed, Wayne managed to not to look put off at all. "I hope it's not bad news?"

"No. New evidence . . . turned up. We'll use it to . . . put away bad guys, like you said."

"Great," Wayne said, not sounding concerned in the least. "Maybe I'll bring the plans by later in the week?"

"Fine," Gordon said. "Don't forget your Ferrari this time."

"I didn't forget, Commissioner," Wayne said, and smiled such a smile that Gordon was fairly sure he'd been right as to a large part of Wayne's motives.

 

* * *

When it happened, it was a week later. By then it was early autumn. It was only eight thirty, already dark. Still, it was surprisingly early for Gordon to be home, which made him wonder how Wayne knew he would be, since he'd been at the MCU until nearly three that night a week ago. Wayne knocked when Gordon was in the middle of dinner, which was the usual: a box of noodles. Wayne started talking about the grant and some kind of nonprofit, which sounded hardly feasible. Gordon went on eating noodles from the pan, admittedly not listening very closely.

"What is that?" Wayne said finally, looking at Gordon's noodles.

Gordon blinked. "Pasta Roni."

"Smells delicious."

Gordon believed that about as much as he believed the rest, but to be polite, he said, "Want some? I was going to put the rest in a tupper ware."

"Yeah," Wayne said, and took the pan, and his fork.

Gordon watched him wolf it down in under two minutes with some measure of incredulity.

"What?" Wayne said, seeing the way Gordon was looking at him.

"You eat that same way you drink shitty coffee."

"How's that?" Wayne set down the pan and cleaned his mouth with the back of his hand.

Gordon shrugged. "With gusto, I guess."

Wayne laughed. "What can I say? I'm an enthusiastic guy. About the foundation," he went on, going over plans he had for the grant.

Gordon wasn't paying particular attention. Instead he was thinking about why the hell Bruce Wayne was appearing at his apartment at odd hours, and that the man must be having a strange bout of non-midlife crisis that involved working through daddy issues and sussing out his "inner puer", like Loeb used to say. Loeb had always been full of maxims and pretension, the odd academic phrase here he'd heard somewhere, the reference to classic literature there. He often imparted said insight in his crude, amiable way, and always managed to include scotch, cards, or cigars in his conventional wisdom.

Loeb had been fond of comparing the higher ups, government and bureaucracy in general to the Greek gods. "They were immortal," he'd say. "They haven't got anything serious to worry about, because the most serious thing can never happen. They're jealous of us, who can really feel, who can really act, because we're mortal. So they just play petty games with us. They're just having fun."

When Loeb had been made Commissioner, someone had reminded him of that. "It's absolutely true," he'd said, and pulled a bottle of bourbon from under his desk. "Care for some nectar of the gods?"

Gordon had never held with that line of thinking. He didn't know about Greek gods, but he'd never met an immortal. Still, he thought of Loeb when Wayne was talking; he thought a lot of what Wayne was doing was more to amuse himself than anything else. It was inevitable he would get distracted by something else he found shiny soon enough, and forget his well-meaning plans. Gordon didn't expect anything to come of it.

Then again, he'd never expected to sleep with him, either.

Gordon hadn't really given what he'd thought about the Ferrari a second thought until now. He'd been busy using the evidence Batman had given them to get the D.A. to process the necessary people. There'd been bureacracy and red tape to sort through, and the new D.A. wasn't half what Harvey Dent had been even if Dent had . . . done what he had done.

The rest of the time, Gordon had been working closely with Batman on tracking down a suspect in the drug ring case. It necessitated secrecy and lots of lying, while still trying to make use of what Batman could give him . . . It had been a hard week, and this was Gordon's first night off, and here was Bruce Wayne stealing his noodles.

That was probably why Gordon was thinking of Loeb, and the games people play when they don't have more important things to worry them, and why he finally did say what he'd thought about saying earlier that week, which was, "What do you want?

"What do I want?" Wayne repeated.

Gordon had just taken the pan to the kitchen, and had come back to find Bruce not looking over his oh-so-important papers, but the picture of Babs and James on the coffee table. When Gordon spoke, Wayne turned to him. He looked so casual there, on Gordon's couch, arm on the back of it, legs splayed in their studiously faded designer jeans.

"You need to talk to our grant writer if you want to make a donation," Gordon said. "Not me. So why are you here?"

"You don't want to hear my ideas?" Wayne's voice was carefully blank.

"I don't understand what you get out of it," Gordon said. "Do you want me to say it's a good thing, if you donate the grant money? You already know that. Do you want someone's approval? Because it shouldn't be mine."

"What if you are, Jim?" Gordon had never asked him to use his first name the way Wayne had, and it should have made everything more clear, except it didn't. Wayne was still using that strangely neutral, flat voice. "What if you're what I need?"

"Trust me, son," Gordon said. "I'm not."

At that, Wayne stood—swiftly, fluid. It made detached bitterness well in Gordon. He looked at men, but often it was as much clinical assessment as any messing around he'd done before Barbara. A body that sleek and lithe should be on the force; they needed more physically fit men. Or at least a body like that should be donating to the department its retinue of personal trainers, gym memberships, and hours of free time spent honing commercially perfect muscles.

"I trust you," Wayne said, and came toward him.

Before Wayne could grab him, Gordon stopped him. It made the first touch his—important, since Wayne did grab him. "I won't tell you you've been a good boy, after," Gordon said in warning.

"I don't want to be a good boy," Wayne said. Then he moved his lips to Gordon's.

There hadn't been anyone since Barbara. It was less that thought, though, and more the thought that it had only been Barbara, for the longest time, and now there would never be Barbara again, that made Gordon kiss back. Wayne's mouth was warm. His lips were strong and soft. Gordon really didn't know why not, so he did.

Wayne pushed his tongue in Gordon's mouth and tried to rip off his glasses. Gordon closed a firm hand over the spectacles and put them carefully on the counter; meanwhile, Wayne had already started in on Gordon's shirt instead. He got it open to the collarbone, enough to suck on Gordon's neck. Gordon tipped his head back, mustache brushing Wayne's temple, thinking how odd it was that Wayne's chin scraped where it touched his skin.

It had been a long time since before Barbara, since men, since anyone but her, since this.

Wayne's chest would take getting used to again, too. Gordon started unbuttoning the other man's shirt, but suddenly Wayne's hands were gripping his wrists tight, like iron, jerking them away from the buttons, above Gordon's head, against the wall. Gordon had cuffed too many criminals, told too many suspects to stop and hold their hands just such a way, for it to be comfortable at all. And it may have been a long time before Barbara, but Gordon still remembered how some people thought they could control you, even in this, especially in this.

Wayne was sleek and lithe and commercially perfect, but his grip was textbook, and easing as his lips found Gordon's again. Gordon had spent more than half his life a cop; it was easy to twist, push Wayne back, and trap him against the wall.

Wayne just kept kissing him, straining against the forearm Gordon had pressed against his neck. Gordon dared him, just dared him to try to tear his hand away again when the one not holding him in place dropped down to work open Wayne's jeans. Wayne just tilted his hips so Gordon could jerk the zipper down more easily.

Still holding Wayne against the wall with his forearm, Gordon licked his other palm, pushed it down into Wayne's boxers. Kissed Wayne, measured and languid, so down lower he could feel Wayne's cock jump in his hand like something trained to his touch, obedient. "Good," Gordon murmured.

"Thought you said you wouldn't say that," Wayne said.

He didn't look near dazed enough with lust, considering the hardness of his cock in Gordon's hand. Gordon said shut up and squeezed, and the haze came over Wayne's eyes as though it had been ordered. "Shh," Gordon said, "that's right." He thought maybe the words came from realizing he knew what to do with a man, remembered how to hold the reverse of himself and pull him off, but maybe it was something else entirely.

Gordon still held Wayne against the wall. Wayne didn't fight it, stood there restrained, jerking into Gordon's hand with Gordon saying, "like that, just like that," against his jaw. Still, it was when Gordon's arm finally loosened, free hand finally locking around Wayne's neck and pulling him down for another kiss, Wayne came.

"Good," Gordon told him again, and Wayne didn't talk back this time, just took Gordon's hand, covered in come, and brought it to his mouth. Licked his palm, sucked come from his fingers long and slow, which Gordon guessed was only fitting. If you were going to bring off someone against a wall who wasn't your wife, you might as well make it as dirty as possible.

Maybe Wayne sensed his thoughts, but more probably he had his own issues, with the way he slipped to his knees with the ease of someone who'd been pushed down. He deftly opened Gordon's pants, took out his cock, and began to suck.

It was the first time Gordon found him beautiful.

He'd known it before, of course, but abstractly. He'd been aware that Wayne could have been a model, a movie star, that he was the sort of man women looked at and gay men got hard over, but Gordon had never felt it, personally, intimately, deep down. He only felt it now, looking at Wayne on his knees with lips wrapped around his cock.

Maybe it was the fact that this, too, was dirty, getting sucked off in your kitchen by someone you really only barely knew. The fact that it was so completely abstract, that Gordon didn't know why Wayne was doing this, why he'd picked Gordon—didn't know anything that went on beyond that pretty face—that reduced everything it was to just that face and nothing more. It was just another body, its beauty and its warmth, one other person with you in the world.

Gordon's apartment was usually empty; friends he knew outside of work were all couples and families and felt awkward inviting him without Barbara. From his department, he had to hide, keep the truth. Criminals sometimes felt closer.

But there was Batman, so Gordon wasn't completely alone.

As if Batman wasn't coldest of all, the secret Gordon had to keep, the one person who stood with him and yet had to stay farther apart than the rest. More distant than this beautiful boy with his red mouth around his cock could ever be, and yet, still what Gordon thought of when he knew he was going to come.

Gordon pulled on Wayne's head to draw him back, but Wayne must have had further issues still because he stayed and swallowed. Gordon grunted and pet that thick hair, murmured, "That's right, good," even though Wayne was done, putting him neatly back into his pants.

Then Wayne stood, and at last, Gordon felt awkward. He was shorter than Wayne, and his shirt was hanging open, and he just might be too old for this. He needed a cigarette.

Once he had one and was sitting at the table by the window he'd opened, Wayne stole one of his cigarettes and lit up as well. He made it look like he smoked regularly, though Gordon was fairly certain he didn't. One of those after-sex smokers then, and after-sex talkers, too, because he started talking, like nothing much had happened.

Maybe nothing much had. This probably happened every other day for Wayne; he was that rich, and handsome, and caught in a web of fame. Sex was like a handshake for him, and he didn't know the difference, or did and didn't care.

Gordon exhaled cigarette smoke, and inhaled the night air.

Wayne was talking about one of his famous global jaunts dealing with Russian ballerinas, or screwing Morraccan princesses, or renting out the Taj Mahal for a rave, who knew. This time it was Mongolia somewhere, or Tibet, Gordon wasn't paying much attention; maybe he was talking about buying Malaysia.

"There were these flowers; they did things to your brain. Best drugs I ever got. You can't do a thing about it, Commissioner; this was way outside your jurisdiction," Wayne said, though Gordon hadn't raised a brow, was trying to smoke his cigarette in peace. "And this one guy, Henri Ducard—rich, good-looking, powerful, whatever else you can think of, and goddamn, but he was twisted. Fucked like an animal, too. We could go at it all night long. He was your age."

Gordon didn't bother apologizing that he wasn't Ducard, just kept smoking.

"He owned a mountain, the whole thing. There was this resort at the top," Wayne went on. "Everybody who worked there was his. I'm telling you, he was filthy powerful. Used to throw the most wicked parties. Got out of hand sometimes."

"I don't have any condoms," Gordon said, and stubbed out his cigarette.

"I come prepared," Wayne said, and tossed three packets and lube onto the table. "You heard about the one where it got a little rowdy, few too many drinks, ended up burning down Wayne Manor? Crazy night—in Gotham, too. That was the kind of party Henri threw." Wayne stubbed out his cigarette as well. "Ready for another fuck?"

Wayne didn't wait for an answer, moved in to kiss Gordon, hauling him up and against the wall as he did. Wayne's jeans were still open. He'd never fastened them, and with one hand he was somehow able to open the lube, spread it on his hand, and finger himself, all while still kissing Gordon. When he started opening a condom one handed, too, Gordon told him not to be an ass and took it from him.

"Fine," Wayne said, and brought Gordon's arm around his neck, the way it had been before, forearm to his own throat, and then he faced the wall. That left Gordon himself to put the condom on one-handed, trapped against Wayne, though Wayne was the one face up against the wall. It had been a long, long time, and it took a while, but finally Gordon had it on and was pushing into Wayne.

Gordon wasn't quite tall enough, but with his arm braced against Wayne the way it was, every time Wayne's hips jerked against the wall, it pulled him to the balls of his feet and pushed him deeper. He wasn't sure why Wayne would choose to be the one facing the wall, except that he guessed billionaire playboys might have any number of weird kinks. And Wayne had a measure of control this way, even while getting fucked from behind. Gordon guessed it was good that it was different, strange. He just didn't want to think about Barbara.

So he said, "That's it; take it."

"More," Wayne grunted. "Harder."

"Be patient," Gordon told him. "Be good."

"Fuck," Wayne said, and rolled his hips in such a way that it lifted Gordon to his toes.

Wayne shouldn't be so strong, or flexible—so young, Gordon thought. So very wrong, but that was good, too. "That's right," he said, because it was wrong. "Just like that."

"Tell me," Wayne told the wall.

Gordon did understand, after all—not all of it, but enough—why Wayne was the one asking for it, open for it, against the wall for it. "It's alright," Gordon said, pushing into that warmth and almost believing it himself. "Everything's going to be fine. You're good; you're doing so good—" The things Gordon had said he wouldn't say.

Wayne's hips were rolling steadily now, his shoulders slamming against the wall, only his own hand working his own cock. "More," he said, and Gordon did.

"Everything's fine. Tight, and warm, and good—you're so goddamn good—proud, I'm proud of you, doing the right thing." Gordon was so glad he didn't have to see Wayne's face, just had to feel the heat and comfort of his body, so for a moment, these things could actually be true. "You're doing so good," Gordon told him. "It's going to be okay, son."

Wayne came in a short series of steady grunts, almost grim somehow, but the sudden clenching brought Gordon to it, too, pushing a lax Wayne into the wall and spending himself until he was done.

Then there was a moment Gordon was too tired and too disgusted with himself, the things he had just said and done. But it passed quickly, because Wayne turned and pulled up his jeans, which had only dropped halfway down his thighs. When that was done he kissed Gordon, soft and sloppy, but short as well. He pulled away, said, "Nice," and flashed a TV smile.

Gordon went to throw the condom away, fastened his pants, and looked for his glasses.

Wayne handed them to him, still smiling. "Maybe you should get to bed," he joked.

Gordon swallowed a sigh. "Maybe you should go home," he said.

"At this hour?" Wayne scoffed. "You've got to be kidding. There's a runway show at the Grand, and at least three after-parties. Have you seen the line-up for this year?" Then he was talking about some women Gordon didn't know, presumably models, European or something.

"Maybe you should go to your parties," Gordon amended, without a change of inflection.

"Right. Have a nice evening." Wayne went for the door. "Maybe I'll see you," he tossed back, but didn't bother turning around, and then he was gone, and that was that.


	3. Chapter 3

Gordon didn't really think he'd see him.

Which was alright. It was amazing how good he felt the next day. Maybe he'd just needed a good fuck. He hadn't realized how tense his body had gotten due to the things weighing on his mind, and how relieving his body could ease his mind in turn.

Even with Batman the next night, Gordon felt more at ease. Usually it made him tense, having to keep the meetings secret from the force, having to obscure his source. Made him tense, too, the secrets Batman had to keep, the fact that Gordon couldn't help him more.

But not this time. Even the fact he'd thought of Batman when Wayne was sucking him off last night didn't bother Gordon. After all, it hadn't been Batman's pointy hat or swirly cape or man of mystery appeal, or even his bravery and all he stood for. It been that he was the only one Gordon had in this, had at all sometimes. But tonight, that didn't knot Gordon's shoulders either. He just felt good.

It hadn't been this way with Barbara for years. It wasn't that the sex had been better with Wayne—of course it couldn't be, because there wasn't that emotional component with Wayne, it couldn't even compare. But because there wasn't that emotion, it couldn't be as fraught, either. Afterward, Gordon wouldn't wish he was at home in bed with someone he could go back to. He wouldn't feel guilty because he had to leave someone behind, because he wanted to leave someone behind, because he didn't actually wish he could go back to bed. He didn't have to wonder what he was doing to Barbara or the kids. He certainly didn't have to worry about Wayne and his runway models. Just himself.

Gordon wondered if this was what a one-night stand was like, why people did it. He wouldn't know; he'd never done it. But this had to be it: no strings attached, no expectation. No relationship whatsoever, no hope for one. No desire for one.

A relationship with Wayne wouldn't be a relationship. He was like a cardboard cut-out figure. There probably were cardboard cut-outs of him, like there were of Captain Kirk and Ninja Turtles and the President, and possibly Batman. Sure, Wayne went deeper. Beneath the shiny surface there was someone vulnerable, needy, lonely, craving love, acceptance, full of daddy issues—exactly what you would expect, and almost as shallowly stereotypical. A pity, possibly. And Gordon did feel pity, pity he felt for so many people who could not work with what they'd been given. He cared, because compassion had always been a weakness of his, too.

But he didn't think he'd mind if he never saw Wayne again, and that was alright, because he didn't think he would. His department had officially closed the Wayne Enterprises file in the Lau case, after finding nothing different in Fox's files than they already knew.

Meanwhile, Wayne himself had moved onto better things, namely European models. The morning after the night he'd been at Gordon's, the paper was splashed with pictures from the same night of Wayne and beautiful women everywhere. Gordon actually recognized some of their names, thanks to Wayne's rambling. Svetlana was the one Wayne was enthusiastically kissing in the paper that morning, and the one he was purported to be dating the papers several days later. With the partying and drinking and Gordon didn't know—flower narcotics—Wayne must be busy with during his whirlwind romance, he had to have forgotten his non-midlife whatever.

Which was why Gordon was so surprised to hear a few days later that Wayne had contacted the grant writer after all. Apparently, he was not only helping her draft the grant for his donation, he was also feeling out interest for a nonprofit organization of business and civic leaders that would support the GCPD.

It was surprising enough that Gordon wondered whether this was payment for services rendered. It made Gordon feel a little dirty, which he hadn't before, because it made things complex in a way they hadn't been. Maybe the last incorruptible cop in Gotham didn't exist any more, could be bought now. Of course, the grant or Wayne's wealth hadn't been why Gordon had done it. But he didn't like the way it stank.

But he liked the grant, so maybe he was a whore after all.

At any rate, Gordon was back to being tense over other issues, and didn't have time to get worked up over that one. Gordon and Batman had discovered a weapons ring behind the drug ring, and Batman was trying to set things up so Gordon could catch some of the dealers in the act. For a few days Gordon came as close as he could to forgetting about Bruce Wayne, until he ran into him at City Hall.

Gordon had been meeting with city officials, releasing the info they needed to know about the arms dealing. He came out of the elevator to find Wayne in the lobby, on his way out.

"Commissioner Gordon," Wayne said, looking honestly surprised, but just as honestly pleased. "Fancy meeting you here."

"Mr. Wayne," Gordon said, polite as ever.

"I was in a meeting with some civic finance people. Something like that. I'm going to start a foundation."

"So I've heard. It sounds like a well-meaning plan."

"Faint praise!" Wayne scoffed. "No, really, it will work. I don't know how. Mostly that's Fox. But they need a pretty face."

"You don't have Ms. Moravek on retainer?" Also known as Svetlana, Wayne's European model flame. According to what Gordon had seen of her, which was only in the papers, she did have a pretty face.

Wayne stared at him blankly for a moment. Then he burst into laughter. "Come on, let's get lunch."

"I have to get back," said Gordon, not sure whether he was glad he had a ready made excuse or not.

"It'll be quick. To celebrate the Police Foundation."

For a moment, Gordon wavered. "Fine," he said, and started for the door.

Wayne seemed happy, as ever, to follow. It wasn't cold outside yet, but leaves were already falling. Gordon couldn't remember his last autumn without Barbara.

As they walked, Wayne said suddenly, "I'm tired of all these fancy restaurants. Let's go to your place."

Gordon didn't know whether he had expected that or not, but he didn't break stride. "It's the middle of the day."

"You're always telling me the time. Come on, it's just lunch. We'll have that Roni pasta stuff."

They both knew that's not what he was actually proposing. "I know a hole in the wall two blocks away," Gordon said. "Plenty of pasta, not fancy. Dirty and cheap." Gordon pause for the meaning to sink in. "Just like you want."

"Mmm. I know what you mean." Wayne appeared to consider in a way that was for appearances only. "No, that's alright. I'd rather have Roni. Come on. Your place. We'll be quick."

It was amazing how easy it was to have a conversation that meant something entirely different than the words implied. Gordon didn't think about it too closely. He knew he should say no to Wayne, but somehow couldn't find the will to, didn't want to. "Fine," he said again.

"Excellent. There's the rail station on 5th."

Gordon thought about asking where his Ferrari was, but figured Wayne had his own reasons. Maybe it had to do with Wayne liking to think he was one of the common people. Maybe Wayne didn't want to be seen going to an old, divorced police officer's seedy-in-comparison apartment. Maybe Wayne just didn't want to waste the Ferrari on someone like him. The truth was, Gordon didn't really care.

When they got to his apartment, Gordon let them both in. Wayne wandered idly to the kitchen as Gordon took off his coat and tossed his keys. When Gordon got to the kitchen, Wayne wasn't looking for the pasta.

"Looks like you've got some cold ones," Wayne said, rooting through the fridge.

Gordon watched him. "I still don't have condoms," he said.

"Told you, I got it covered." Wayne closed the refrigerator and pulled the condoms and tube of lubricant out of his pocket.

"Do you just bring that everywhere you go?"

"Pretty much." Wayne flashed a smile.

Gordon nodded, resigned. "Alright. Sit down."

Wayne blinked for a moment, then did what he'd been told.

"Put them on the table," Gordon said.

There was that tiniest pause again, and Wayne put the condoms and lube on the table.

"Good." Gordon took of his glasses, laid them on the table too. Then he opened Wayne's legs, and knelt between them.

He didn't know why he'd picked the hard kitchen floor for this, instead of the carpet. Maybe to punish himself. He started opening up Wayne's slacks. "Are you hard?"

Breath, and then the answer, firm. "Yes."

"Want me to suck you off?"

Wayne tilted his hips, slipping his pants down farther, giving Gordon better access. "Yes."

"Good," Gordon said again. He was holding Wayne's cock now, loose at the base. "Ask."

When Wayne's hips twitched again, his lips did too. "I like how you get right to business," he said.

Gordon's hand tightened. "Ask it nice."

"Alright, please." But as he looked down at Gordon, the impudence in Wayne's face faded, and something soft took its place. Besides lust, he spoke with some other emotion Gordon couldn't define, something that made his hazel eyes bright and warm. "Please, Jim. Give it to me."

Rather than define that tenor, Gordon sucked his cock.

This, too, was comforting. He'd done it before, but it had been forever ago, and he couldn't fit it all in any more. But when he had done it when he was young, it was either as a favor or an exchange. This wasn't like that.

It wasn't the brilliance of Wayne's cock that made the difference. It was that Gordon hadn't felt this close to anyone in so long, and that he missed Barbara, and this was so intimate and personal and felt like it was about trust without any of the complications of it actually being so. It was the smell of Wayne—not the cologne smell of the rest of him, but this very human smell, of another person who wanted him. It was Wayne's wiry hair, the softness of his balls, the fullness of his cock that was so real, and warm.

Wayne didn't make much noise, though from the restrained snapping of his hips, he enjoyed it about as much. He jerked Gordon's head away when he came, hard enough that Gordon didn't have a choice, and most the come landed in a napkin Wayne had grabbed from the table.

Gordon stood, knees creaking. Then he pulled Wayne up too, and kissed him. It was good in the same way sucking his cock was—Wayne was warm and eager.

Wayne's hands came up to cup the sides of Gordon's face, and then he was kissing Gordon back, hard, with lots of tongue, trying to reach Gordon's tonsils. Gordon wasn't sure such sudden desperation was necessary, but it was nice to feel needed, too. Then Wayne was sucking Gordon's neck, just as hard, biting.

Gordon pulled away. "My line of work, I get a lot of bruises," he explained, "but not there."

"Jim," Wayne said, and there was that thread of desperation there, too. "Jim." Wayne was kissing him again, hands on Gordon's back, pushing down inside his pants, his boxers. His fingers were on Gordon's ass, between his cheeks, down his crease.

Gordon shuddered. He hadn't been touched there like that in a long, long time.

"I've got to," Wayne said.

Gordon let him touch him there, just feeling it. "Yeah. Okay," he said finally. "Lube."

Wayne made a low humming sound. "In a bit."

"The bedroom," Gordon said. "If you're going to be like that."

"Like what?"

"If you're going to take forever. Are you?" Gordon kissed him, his hand slipping past Wayne's waistband to find his cock. Wayne was already getting hard again. When Gordon pulled his mouth away, his hand was tight and his voice was low in Wayne's ear, just like a threat. "Gonna make it slow? Draw it out? Open me up, one—" he stroked Wayne's cock—"finger—at—a—time?"

"Christ, you make that sound good." Wayne's voice sounded new, colored with surprise.

It made Gordon wonder whether Wayne had ever been gentle with anyone, ever—whether he'd ever had to be. "Can you do it?" It was like a taunt. "You know how to be careful, Wayne?"

"Yeah." The touches at Gordon's entrance weren't soft, but they were steady. "Yeah, I know how. I can fuck you so good." He kissed him again, and Gordon hadn't expected the confidence in that tone or the depth of that kiss, or the words Wayne spoke next. "Let me take you to bed, Jim."

"Don't forget the condoms," was all Gordon said.

In the bedroom, Wayne left the lights on. He took all Gordon's clothes off with kisses and the promised care, but didn't take any of his own off. When he finally had two fingers in Gordon, slicked to the hilt, he pursed his lips. "Jesus, Jim," he croaked. "How long has it been?"

Gordon thought of the last time he and Barbara had been adventurous in bed. Of the last time they'd been comfortable in their love enough and feeling free enough. Of the last time they'd been honest with each other, which was even longer ago, before Dent, before Batman, even before the kids, which in some ways had just been a botched salvage attempt.

Gordon arched his hips and said, "Put another one in."

Wayne's jaw muscles ticked. "You're so tight."

Another arch of hips. "Just do it."

"No." The fingers worked, clamped tight together, but gradually relaxing the tight ring of muscle. "I'm going to take you slow, remember? Stretch you open, open you all the way up. I'm going to get inside you, Jim. Inside of here." He opened his palm on Gordon's forehead, and the other hand pushed another finger in.

"Good luck," Gordon grunted.

"Yeah," Wayne said, kissing Gordon's temple, his jaw, the place on his neck under his ear. "Yeah, you're so fucking tight."

"I don't have anything to hide."

The way the shiver ran up Wayne's spine, it was like Gordon had a hand on his cock, when actually Gordon had pretty much forgotten anything but concentrating on relaxing. But Wayne seemed to be taking care of it himself, cock dragging against Gordon's hip bone, in time with the slow movements of Wayne's fingers inside Gordon's body. "God," Wayne muttered. "Say that again."

It made sense, Gordon thought later. If Wayne wasn't looking to slum it, he was looking for simplicity. It made sense for a crisis, even if it wasn't midlife. Gordon had never found his life very simple, but he supposed to someone like Wayne it could seem that way. "I don't have anything to hide," Gordon said again.

As though he'd flipped a switch, Wayne shivered again. "I want to fuck you," he said steadily, taking his fingers out. Then he was pushing in, saying, "I want to fuck you until you can't sit down. I want to put bruises on you. I want to fuck you until you have something to hide, but I'm not going to. I'm going to be careful, like you said."

"Good boy." Gordon spread his legs.

"I can be good." Wayne's face was tight, concentrating on going slow, on not pushing all the way inside. He was going shallow, and quite soft, considering the hardness of his cock. "I can be so good for you."

He was.


	4. Chapter 4

Gordon still didn't expect to see Wayne again.

He did pick up a box of condoms with his carton of cigarettes on his morning run the next day. Even if he didn't expect to need them, he'd spent two years as a rookie visiting schools and youth centers, telling kids not to do drugs and to have safe sex, and he wasn't a hypocrite.

The papers announced the end of the two week long love affair between Wayne and Svetlana Moravek. It happened long enough after their last encounter Gordon could be sure, had he been at all concerned, that the messy break-up had nothing to do with him and everything to do with Wayne having a chronically short attention span. For a few days the tabloids scrambled after other European models to connect to Wayne as possible reasons for his leaving Svetlana, until they found a bigger fish to fry.

Attention span aside, the nonprofit Wayne had claimed he was starting was slowly gaining support, and this was what captured the sudden fascination of the papers. Fall headlines asked whether Gotham's bad boy was turning a new leaf, and whether Gotham itself would usher in a new age of philanthropy, the likes of which had died with the previous Wayne generation. Even the _Gotham Times_ couldn't resist front-paging a flash of Bruce Wayne's smile, followed by a quote on A3.

Everything Wayne said about the project sounded inspiring and pleasant, and could be examined more closely to reveal an obvious lack of understanding of how both business and government worked. Wayne probably wasn't stupid, only oblivious, though Gordon sometimes thought it was hard to tell the difference.

Even with the last of Svetlana and the nonprofit organization set up directly for the benefit of the GCPD, Gordon didn't expect to see Wayne. Still, that didn't mean he was surprised when he did.

It was at the MCU. Gordon was in his office when Wayne strolled in with his suit and slicked back hair, looking just like he'd come to reclaim yet another Ferrari. "They told me you were in," he said, and smiled.

"Can I help you, Mr. Wayne? As you can see, I'm fairly busy."

"You can. It's Bruce." That same smile.

"Anything else?" It wasn't that Gordon was annoyed. He just . . . still didn't know how to deal with this, and he and Batman were going to try for that arrest tonight, and he didn't need these distractions, and yeah, maybe he was just a little bit annoyed after all. Meanwhile Wayne looked impudent and like a million dollars, and it made Gordon want to fuck him all over again; he didn't know why.

"I wanted to know how you are," Wayne said, seating himself across the desk from Gordon. They weren't comfortable chairs, but Wayne managed to look comfortable, arms spread across the back as if it were a couch, legs spread in front as if he was—well, he probably was. "Talk for a while, shoot the breeze," Wayne was saying. "Is that so wrong?"

Gordon resisted the urge to clean his glasses, the urge to look away. Instead he looked straight at him. "I'm sorry, Mr. Wayne. You'll have to come back another time."

"We could talk about the Gotham City Police Foundation," Wayne said pleasantly. "About what it'll be funding, what's needed, what you're working on. There should be open communication, anyway. So I know what's going on here, so I feel comfortable throwing my money at your venerable institution."

"We're not an institution." Gordon felt weary, the way he often did when Wayne looked at him like that, so young and wealthy and attractive. "Read the press releases."

"No, that's not what I mean. I don't want what anyone else gets. I like the cause I'm giving to to have a face. I like to feel personally connected. I just want to be a special unique snowflake like everyone else, Commissioner."

"I'm not sure I'm the face you're looking for."

A small smile played on Wayne's lips. "Oh yes. You are."

"Why?" The simple question carried so much weight.

The ironic smile stayed. "Put it this way. You think I'm bored. You think I'm amusing myself until the next thing comes along. You think the Police Foundation and grant and all of it's a whim. Don't deny it."

"Hadn't planned on it," Gordon pointed out.

"Good." At Gordon's raised brow, Wayne explained, "You're too damned polite, sometimes. My point is—so what if taking an interest amuses me? If I think I have some understanding of what you do and how I can help? You might as well amuse me all you can. Milk me for what I'm worth."

"When you put it that way."

Wayne smirked at Gordon's sarcasm. "Indulge me."

He made it sound dirty.

Gordon sighed. "What do you want to know? We've been trying for a real-time database, we've been cleaning up the Joker mess for months now, the biggest threat on the horizon is Gambol, the light on the roof needs replacing—"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you still haven't found the Batman. Let's get lunch."

Gordon stiffened. "I'm out of Pasta Roni." His voice was severe.

Wayne barked a loud laugh. "Don't be crass, Jim. It's the middle of the day." He stood and got Gordon's coat, tossing it to him as Gordon stood. "How about that diner we went to, with the pancakes. I want that waitress's number."

"Right," Gordon said, fastening his coat. "She was just so adorable."

Wayne laughed again, a surprised, delighted sound. "You're funny. You shouldn't be; you look like such an old stick-in-the-mud, but you are."

Gordon opened his door and went through it. "I try."

* * *

They didn't have the waitress. They had Joe, who owned the diner, and was widely resented because he never gave cops free coffee. He was rotund and even more surly than the waitress, and Wayne flirted with him about as much. Joe looked like he'd seen it all before—the winks, the teasing, the not so accidental touches.

"I don't drink milk," Gordon said when Joe left. Wayne had ordered two glasses, besides the rest of the menu.

"It's for me," Wayne said. "But you should be getting your calcium, now that I think about it. Alfred says it does a body good."

"Alfred." Gordon remembered Wayne had mentioned the name before.

"My butler," Wayne said, because of course he had a butler.

"You're his ward." Now Gordon also remembered the personal details he'd happened to catch in the papers now and again.

Wayne nodded. "He makes sure I get my vitamins."

"Somehow I don't think Alfred would approve of waffles and a cheeseburger, two glasses of milk and coffee as a well-balanced meal."

"Alfred isn't very vocal about disapproving," Wayne said. "Or approving. Either way. He's very English."

Gordon remembered thinking Wayne's antics were to earn some kind of response. Any response. The way Wayne spoke now, Gordon guessed he'd been at least partly correct.

Their meals came—Wayne's meals and Gordon's bagel, which prompted Wayne to say, "Also, you should eat more. Get some meat on those bones." Gordon ignored him, and Wayne proceeded to inhale his cheeseburger.

Meanwhile Gordon gave Wayne a rundown on the latest press release, and Wayne made his expected interested, ignorant observations. He asked about the real-time database. When Gordon told him about it, he seemed surprised. "You just don't strike me as a technology buff," Wayne said. "All those gadgets, figure you'd be one to do it yourself."

Gordon put his bagel down. "I do anything I can if it will help my officers do their jobs."

"Hm," said Wayne, and they kept talking.

It was strange, Gordon thought, because it was comfortable. It wasn't like talking to the force, of course. Nor was it like talking to the brass; Gordon could say what he wanted, because Wayne would do what he himself wanted, and there wasn't much Gordon could do about it.

It wasn't like talking to the few friends Gordon had outside the force, either. Partly because they were Barbara's friends, too, and Gordon didn't see them any more with the divorce. But they had never wanted to know the gory details—that Gambol had split Maroni's business with the Chenchen, that there was a problem with AK proliferation. They wanted to know their city was safe, so Gordon had kept his mouth shut and tried to make it so. They were the people he was protecting.

If talking with Wayne now reminded Gordon of anything, it was talking to Barbara, before he had stopped. This would be before the kids, before it got so bad in Gotham, before every new problem at work made her realize she might lose a husband, the kids a father.

Gordon didn't need to be careful about worrying Wayne. He could just talk, and it was a load off, the way it had once been with Barbara. It was good—really good, considering the arrest he and Batman were trying for that night; Gordon needed to be calm. He could feel himself unwinding, loosening knots he hadn't realized had tied up again. He didn't miss the irony that it was Wayne who could do this to him, and apparently not just physically—frivolous, fickle Wayne, who may as well have been from a different world.

The owner brought them more coffee, and Wayne smiled. "Cup o' joe, Joe."

"Like I never heard that before," Joe grunted.

"Not from me," Wayne said, and winked.

Gordon waited for Joe to leave again, then asked, "You do that with everyone?"

Wayne's smile turned lazy. "Everyone who can screw."

"Does it ever get old?"

Wayne's smile turned lazier still. "Not if they put out."

Gordon wiped his mouth and tossed his napkin on the table. "The last thing is Batman," he said, because he had to. "We haven't made much headway. Not much new there, if you've been watching the news."

"Batman," Wayne scoffed. "What a joke. Always knew there was something wrong with someone who dressed up like a flying rodent."

This, too, was a relief. Gordon hated fielding the "But did he really do it?" questions. It was easier if they did believe the story Batman had cooked for them. Many did; sinister and mysterious as Batman was, it was easy. And that was the point, so they would not be forced to believe something so much more difficult.

So, "Yeah," Gordon agreed, smooth as ever—in fact, more smooth than so many of the painful truths he could have told. "Turns out underneath it all, Batman was just another Gotham City crazy."

"Why do all our criminals have themes, anyway?" Wayne joked.

Gordon sipped his coffee. "Don't know. I'm waiting for a snake woman, personally." Best this way, as if it was all a farce. Gordon had always been dry, and it surprised another guffaw from Wayne.

It was true Wayne was attractive, head thrown back like that, throat exposed, his laugh a deep, rich sound. "What about a crazy cat lady?" Wayne said, and Gordon almost smiled.

Wayne pushed back his plate, then started fishing through his wallet. "Looks like we'll have to save bat shenanigans for another time," he said, standing up and tossing another bill on the table. "I'd like to talk some more. Maybe tonight. Your place."

Gordon wasn't paying attention, because he'd noticed what Wayne apparently had moments before. There was someone with a camera walking in, and now that Gordon was alert to it, it was strangely crowded on the sidewalk.

"We can have that Pasta Roni stuff you wanted earlier," Wayne was saying. "I admit it; my mouth started watering when you mentioned it. You make it so good, Jim. Nice and hot. Yoo-hoo." Wayne waved a hand in Gordon's face. "Focus on me. Everyone else is."

Joe had gone out to his foyer to wave his arms at the forming crowd. A brisk bit of autumn wind gusted through the open door. Several of those with cameras had already made their way inside.

Gordon focused on Wayne.

"Don't look like such a deer in the headlights," Wayne said. A lot of flashes went off, eager snaps of Wayne looking down at his lunch partner, Wayne warm and amused. "You're not alone," Wayne said, "so remember: it's not about you. It's all about me."

Wayne turned with a grin to face his adoring public, and Gordon slipped out the other side of the table. Considering the number of camera clicks, Wayne was saying something, distracting the press and paparazzi enough to give Gordon time to escape. With enough police leg-work, you built the skill of finding the back entrance out of anywhere, and Gordon wasn't above flashing his badge at the frightened kitchen workers.

It wasn't that Gordon reviled press—though admittedly, Wayne's personal paparazzi was a little different. At any rate, Gordon was not a fan of the media aspect of police work, but he accepted it came with the territory. There'd been even more of it since he became Commissioner, and he'd accepted it as a distasteful but necessary duty.

He'd been used to it by then, because he was a better known figure in the press than most the force—had been since Batman. People knew he was the one Batman came to; he was the one with the searchlight on the roof. Which was why it had been so important that Gordon announce GCPD's new policy on Batman with the death of Harvey Dent, that Gordon be the one to denounce Batman.

It had been since then that Gordon had begun to loathe cameras in a way he hadn't before. It was no longer just about his personal preferences—the fact that he didn't like the limelight and never sought it. It was that in front of those cameras, he was lying, not just to the press, but to the public, to the people, every single one of them he was trying to protect. He was lying to Jimmy and Babs, who knew the truth and ought to hear their father say it on TV.

Strange as it was that the conversation with Wayne had relaxed him, it was stranger still Wayne had ended it by helping Gordon in a different way, protecting him from something entirely unexpected. And then there were those words, which Gordon kept thinking about. Of course Wayne had meant them in no particular way, but Gordon couldn't help hearing them echo in his head.

_You are not alone._


	5. Chapter 5

If Bruce Wayne made it to Gordon's apartment that night, Gordon missed him. The arrest Batman had helped him set up took a while, though they were successful. Not only did he and the Bat bag the perp they were gunning for, but one of his accomplices who had heretofore been unknown. Then Gordon had to take them to get booked. He didn't get home until the wee hours so he could sleep for two or three of them, and then he was back at the MCU.

But he did see Wayne the next night. They had sex. They didn't have Pasta Roni.

Gordon wouldn't have said it got to be a routine, him and Wayne. There was really no pattern to it. Wayne showed up whenever he willed it, and Gordon happened to be at home some of those times. He certainly didn't wait around for Wayne to show up; he still didn't count on it, didn't expect it. But when it happened, Gordon let it.

Wayne didn't just swing by to see Gordon for sex. When he came around the MCU, or dallied at City Hall because he knew Gordon had a meeting, he came to talk about the Police Foundation, new technologies, what Gordon could reveal of cases they were working on.

They often went to grab a bite—not at the diner, because Joe had banned them over the issue of Wayne's paparazzi. Wayne always made Gordon pick the restaurant, then followed him around like the puppy Gordon had likened him to once. Gordon selected holes in the wall, maybe because he was trying to push Wayne's limits. Maybe because he knew it was what Wayne wanted from Gordon—something common, low-down. Nothing fancy. Mostly, Gordon picked those places because they were the places he was used to, and Wayne would just have to deal. If he didn't like it, he didn't have to go.

But Wayne always seemed to like it. He still ate with enthusiasm, and ordered two meals at least wherever they went. Lots of times he polished off Gordon's as well. Sometimes Wayne even resorted to stabbing food off Gordon's plate, which was never seemed intimate and always seemed like he was half-starved. Gordon asked him once whether he ever ate at home. Wayne just said, "You get tired of protein shakes, bananas, and steaks. And that caviar shit."

He also seemed to enjoy the waiters and waitresses, the cashiers at the counter when the place wasn't even up-scale enough for floor staff. Wayne always left them bigger bills than even the price of putting up with him accounted for, and sometimes seemed like he ordered dessert just to flirt some more (though he always ate dessert, too). Gordon sometimes thought Wayne was just an incorrigible flirt, and never meant anything by it. Except when he did.

There was the time they were getting pizza at Fuzzy's, where there were loud arcades and plastic table cloths, and they had a little blonde waitress. Wayne had been going at her all night, licking his lips when she'd said she'd bring the pizza, asking if she was old enough to bring him a beer. He acted like a homeless man looking for a meal, already thinking of where he could get his next fuck when he finished the one he was in the process of procuring. He and Gordon had just started the pizza when Gordon got called in about a hostage situation. Gordon was already putting on his coat when courtesy caught up with him. "You should stay," he told Wayne lamely. "Finish the pizza."

Wayne was standing too. "Don't think so," he said jovially, but his gaze was directed to the other side of the room. "I suddenly find I have business too."

Gordon couldn't resist. He looked, and there was the little blonde. She'd apparently gone off shift, because she was taking off her apron and lingering by the door, waiting for her ride, maybe, or Wayne. Or to make Wayne her ride. Wayne was already making his way toward her, looking twice as hungry as before, except apparently not for pizza. That was the first time Gordon paid.

But at Gordon's apartment, Wayne didn't seem to suffer from the lack of wait staff to make eyes at. He seemed to like Pasta Roni about as much as anything, and stole Gordon's bad beer and cheap cigarettes. He put his feet up on the water-stained coffee table and watched Gordon's tiny TV, and sucked Gordon off on Gordon's dilapidated couch.

When they fucked it was always in Gordon's apartment, but sometimes they talked there, too, about the same sorts of things—difficulties the department faced, the news. Wayne only ever seemed interested in his amused, detached way, but Gordon still felt the same sense of relief when talking to him. It was good to talk to someone who wouldn't worry, who wouldn't recognize these matters as life or death. They were life or death—but they were Gordon's job, too. He dealt with them every day, and sometimes he needed to get them off his chest so he could do the other things in life.

Sometimes it did seem as though Wayne would get interested, in spite of himself. His comments were simplistic, obvious. Once or twice, though, that straight forward insight had proven valuable, though probably not in the way Wayne meant it.

Once Wayne mentioned that once you had your eye on one thing, someone else had something bigger. Wayne was talking about the crime lab, the lasers or something, but it reminded Gordon of something he'd once said to Batman. And it reminded him of the way he was so focused on these AKs proliferating, and the fact that horrible and dangerous as AKs were, they could be covering the dealing of things far more dangerous. It occurred to Gordon this may be the key to what he and Batman were working on, the way inside.

It made Wayne ask why he was smiling.

"What about escalation?" Gordon said.

Wayne frowned. "What about it?"

"Someone holds you up with a stapler, next thing you know, he's got a tank."

"Squad cars, not tanks," Wayne said, mildly amused. "Stay with me here."

"I know," Gordon said. He kissed him and reached for his cock. "I was saying: I like it when you talk dirty."

Bruce Wayne always had sex with his clothes on. Sometimes they made it to the bed, though Wayne never stayed, but even then, the shoes and socks would go, but there was always a shirt, usually slacks. Gordon thought it was odd, but there was a lot about Wayne that was odd, and he didn't bother to ask. Maybe it had to do with the way Wayne liked to direct the fucking from the bottom sometimes—some measure of control. Maybe it had something to do with homophobia, or maybe it was a kink.

Gordon didn't know; he thought rich kids with fucked up childhoods were liable to have a lot more twisted quirks than Wayne actually did. Wayne probably thought his bisexuality was some kind of aberration, though Gordon had always found his own rather natural. But he did think Wayne's difficult early years had probably led to rebellion and experimentation. Wayne had probably spent a long time searching for his identity, still was, it seemed like. That would have helped him to explore his sexuality in a way a lot of guys who took it for granted they were heterosexual never had.

As far as actual kinks, Wayne only had the few. The clothes, the dark. The things he liked Gordon to say when they were fucking, liked Gordon to call him. The smoking: usually when Gordon smoked after sex, Wayne stole a cigarette, though Gordon never saw him smoking otherwise.

A couple times, too, Wayne talked about Ducard, the guy he'd mentioned after the first time they had sex. Wayne talked about his personal life other times, too, but usually it was about parties or models or sports cars, or a myriad of other subjects Gordon knew nothing about. Wayne was fairly talented at making conversation when he was clueless—namely, when Gordon talked about police work. Gordon, however, was dismal at it, and never knew what to say when Wayne talked about designer suits and sky-diving, and so didn't say anything.

Ducard, though, was different. There was something there Gordon understood, something in Wayne's voice. "You loved him," Gordon pointed out finally, one night after a long hard fuck, and Wayne didn't seem to be able to stop talking.

For a moment Wayne was silent, lying on the bed, drawing on his cigarette. "Yeah. You could say that. I would say that. Yes, I did; I loved him."

Gordon didn't ask whether Wayne wanted to talk about it, because obviously Wayne did. Gordon was well aware this was a reason Wayne was with him, these odd nights out, instead of the super models and pop stars still splashed all over the tabloids. Gordon knew Wayne liked that he was older, that he was experienced, careful, thoughtful.

Bruce Wayne liked that his father would have liked James Gordon.

That was undoubtedly another kink.

"What happened?" Gordon asked, not because he needed to know.

Wayne puffed on his cigarette some more. "He lied to me."

Gordon nodded. "He was married?"

"No." Wayne was quiet for a while, letting the smoke curl into the air. "It was close enough, though. The vows he'd made."

"She was a jealous type?" Gordon asked, still gentle.

Wayne shook his head. "No, he was. She was never even his to take, but he just—he used me to get to her. He used me." Wayne looked into the distance, obviously lost in the memories.

"You didn't do anything wrong," Gordon said, because he had learned with his own children that you didn't always say what you knew; you said what needed to be heard.

"I tried not to." The ash tipped off the end of Wayne's cigarette. "I tried . . . You know the worst of it, Jim? He didn't even do it because he loved her. He wanted to destroy her."

"Stop." Gordon leaned over and took away Wayne's cigarette. "You tried, that's what's important."

"He thought I would go along with it. . . And sometimes I think he knew better, what I would do, what I'm capable of . . ."

Gordon kissed him. "Only you know what you're capable of," he said, and reached down to palm Wayne's cock through his open pants, his boxers.

Wayne finally blinked up at Gordon, above him on the bed. "I trusted him," he said, voice strangely blank. He looked like a lost child who hadn't gotten his way. Gordon guessed maybe a bit of that was true, if Ducard cheating on him was the worst thing to happen to him since his parents' death. Not that that was so very little, but there were worse things.

It didn't make Gordon any less gentle.

"You said you trust me." Gordon pulled on Wayne's cock, working him steadily. "So do it. Trust me now."

"Right." Wayne reached for the lube, gave it to Gordon.

"Good." Gordon took the lube, started spreading some on his fingers. "Good boy."

"Christ," Wayne said, and threw his head back as Gordon eased his finger in.

"Good," Gordon said again. "That's good. Trust me, my fingers inside you, getting you ready."

Wayne opened his legs wider, wide as they would go in his half-down business slacks. Pity they wouldn't go further, really; Gordon had always liked to see a man who spread for it.

He stopped to put a condom on, then Gordon pushed more fingers in, working the tight muscle. "Say it," Wayne said.

"It's alright," Gordon said instead. "You're tight and perfect for me, try to relax, get ready for me. You're trying; you're doing such a good job."

"You know what I want," Wayne said, and twitched as Gordon entered him. "You know."

"You want me to fuck you?" Gordon said, holding off. Wayne was right, Gordon knew, but wouldn't give it yet. If it had been someone else, the delay might have been because what Wayne wanted was even dirtier, but Gordon hardly ever even listened to the filthy things he said. They were mostly nonsense, just the things Wayne needed to hear.

Gordon never asked himself how he instinctively knew them. He'd rather not know. "You want me to tell you how nice and slick you are, since I got you all wet?" he was saying. "How easy you are, open like this? How good you are for me?"

"God," Wayne said, blindly pulling Gordon's head down for a kiss. Wayne's mouth was warm and hungry, eager to suck Gordon's tongue, and then just as quickly pulling away so Wayne could focus on the movements of his hips against Gordon's. "Tell me," Wayne panted. "You know what I wanna hear."

"Don't beg," Gordon said, squeezing Wayne's cock as he drove his own in deeper. "You can't get what you want just by asking for it; the world isn't your string. Maybe if you work for it, if you earn it, if you're a good boy—"

"Jim," Wayne huffed, "_please_—"

"Now you've got it," Gordon said, because Wayne was tightening his ass and rolling his hips, pushing Gordon's hand away on his own cock so he could get the rhythm perfect. "Good," Gordon grunted. "Yeah, that's so good, you're doing beautiful, you're beautiful. That's right, perfect; it's going to be alright."

"Jim." Wayne's fingers were clamped around Gordon's arms hard enough to leave bruises.

Gordon's mouth was by his cheek, gentle and soft, despite the thrusting of his body. "It's alright, son," he said, and Wayne came.


	6. Chapter 6

The morning Batman helped Gordon arrest two major players, the front cover of the paper wasn't the big break they'd made in the arms dealer case. It was the picture of Wayne smiling down at the GCPD Commissioner in Joe's diner. There was more about the famous-again Wayne philanthropy, and the Gotham Prince's friendship with Gotham's finest.

Some intrepid reporter had dug up information about the elder Waynes' murder, and how Gordon had been a cop on duty in the precinct that night. Another intrepid reporter had speculated Wayne was cultivating this relationship for further protection against his famously disastrous parties, which had ended twice now in flames or fire. In short, though the Police Foundation was still in set-up stages only, the media was obsessed with it, and were chomping at the bit to make Wayne a sympathetic figure or a hero, whichever came first.

European models, pop stars, celebrities, and debs were all pushed back in the papers that fall. Two weeks later Svetlana was just a blurb in a tabloid. From what Gordon could tell, Wayne hadn't actually slowed down as far as the parties, the booze, the chrome, and the trailer hitches went. The papers did still mention his outlandish pranks and adventures, and the press still caught random pictures of him with women on either arm. Some of his dirtiest talk was about the women he was sleeping around with at the time.

As if to prove he hadn't given up his playboy ways all for some honorable charity work, he still lacked any sense of timing. Sometimes he came to Gordon's apartment past midnight looking half dressed, rumpled like he'd just put clothes on or partied all evening. Lucky for him Gordon kept odd hours too, and was often up just as late because he'd been with Batman—but not always.

Once Wayne came at four in the morning. Gordon, standing at the door in his undershirt and boxers, blinked several times at Wayne's suit. If sold that suit could have fed a village in Africa for years; it was in complete disarray. Cold wind was blowing inside, and Gordon was tired. "Go home," he said.

"But Jim," Wayne said brightly, "I'm feeling frisky."

"Find someone younger," Gordon said, and shut the door.

The next time Gordon saw Wayne, Wayne acted like it never happened. He was not apologetic; nor was he bitter. It was almost as if he had forgotten, which, when Gordon thought about it, maybe he had. Gordon had never seen Wayne looked so trashed as he had that night; Wayne's voice had been bright, but with an edge, as if laced with exhaustion or agitation.

Gordon wondered whether one day he'd be the one bringing Wayne up on a charge of possession. Speed, probably. Maybe Ecstasy. The rich sometimes had wilder parties than the poor.

When Gordon thought about it that way he almost wondered whether Wayne could have an ulterior motive, with all this grilling about police work and the latest issue of the drug ring. Of course, Wayne was ignorant and under vast misapprehensions when it came to drugs, just as he was of so many other things.

It wasn't the first time Gordon wondered whether Wayne feigned ignorance. It might be that it was just easier, if the world thought you were a flake. You wouldn't have to try so hard. You would be expected to fail. It would be so easy to pull the shenanigans Wayne pulled—absconding with Russian ballerinas, buying Tahiti—and to feel sorry for himself when people ridiculed him for it.

The Bruce Wayne starting the nonprofit for the GCPD, however, was a new image. One that was still woefully uninformed, but there would be some aspects of the ignorant façade that were truth, Gordon supposed. Despite the fact that the papers were painting him as some kind of hero-to-be—possibly a martyr and a saint as well—Wayne still drove the sports cars, and probably bought islands. The suit from that one night did not go to feeding any starving children Gordon knew of.

The papers might have tried to paint Gordon as a martyr and a saint as well, if Wayne had let them. The media was fascinated by the idea of a friendship there, and the personal history, but Wayne was adept at stealing the spotlight. As much as Wayne obviously loved the attention, Gordon was so relieved Wayne took it all, he sometimes wondered if this was another bit of artifice on Wayne's part. It was possible Wayne knew Gordon didn't want it, and was just that adept at maneuvering the media.

Maybe that was part of it. And Wayne certainly didn't want to share the headlines. But Gordon was aware a large part of it also was that Wayne didn't want anyone to find out about their personal interactions. Gordon didn't want anyone to find out either. It wasn't that he wouldn't admit to sleeping with a man; it was that he didn't want his personal life splashed all over the paper.

But Gordon knew it would be different for Wayne. At times Gordon thought he was homophobic. Most the time, he just thought Wayne didn't know he was bisexual. There were boys Gordon had known at the academy who'd claimed they were heterosexual, and what they did with other men was just messing around. Gordon sometimes wondered how many men Wayne could "mess around" with and still consider himself straight. Sometimes he wondered if he was the only one.

But Wayne also had his reputation to consider, and Gordon wasn't just a man—he was almost old enough to be Wayne's father; he was divorced, and working class.

It was all very squalid of Wayne, was what it was.

Wayne liked to keep it that way. They still always fucked at Gordon's apartment. Wayne never drove his fancy cars there, or let Gordon drive them, or drove Gordon in them. They never went to expensive restaurants or cocktail parties or fundraisers, or anything that required clothes dressier than Gordon's jogging sweats. Wayne still never spent the night.

Gordon didn't want fancy cars. He didn't like caviar, or wearing tuxes. He didn't care if Wayne spent the night, actually, and it all seemed to be working out fine.

Once Gordon got home and found Wayne actually waiting for him, sitting on the stoop like some kind of kid. Wayne's face was a little red from the cold. Gordon frowned down at him. Wayne smiled, gave a shrug, and stood behind him while Gordon unlocked the door. "Maybe you should have a key," Gordon said.

There was a pause while they entered. Gordon turned on the lights and Wayne closed the door. Gordon turned back to him; Wayne stood there with a slight, ironic smile. "Aren't you worried I'll come in and drink your beer before you get here?"

Gordon smiled back, because it was nice not coming home to an empty apartment. "My beer tastes like piss."

"It's beer." Wayne grinned and shrugged again. "What's it supposed to taste like? Let's get buffalo wings."

"Maybe," Gordon said. "Wait for me in the bedroom. Take this." Gordon tossed him the lube.

"Oh," said Wayne. "Is Daddy wanting some hot, steamy ass all nice and ready for him when he gets home?"

"Don't talk like that, and yes," Gordon said, heading for the kitchen and his tomato juice.

"Yes sir, Commissioner Gordon sir." Wayne sauntered out.

"I said watch your mouth."

"You watch it," Wayne called from the other room, thinking he was very funny. "On your cock."

Gordon didn't bother replying, because he was on the phone. Ordering Wayne his buffalo wings. After he hung up, he put his glasses on the table beside the phone, and grabbed a handful of condoms. More than two was wishful thinking, but he kept thinking of Bruce on that stoop, waiting for him.

When he went into the bedroom, Wayne said with a smirk, "There, I was a good boy. All nice and slick, just like you wanted." When Gordon rolled his eyes, Wayne added, "Daddy."

Gordon walked over and pulled Wayne's hand away from himself. "You should learn when to quit, _son_."

"Shit," Wayne said, and obeyed without a sound when Gordon made him turn over.

"This what you want?" Gordon asked, climbing over him. He put the condom on, then pushed into Wayne from behind. "Want Daddy to fuck you? Fuck this nice tight ass you got all wet for me?"

Wayne's breath caught. "Jesus. Jesus, Jim."

"Maybe you should just call me Daddy, if you like it so much," Gordon said. Wayne was doing almost as much work, arching his back and pushing back on Gordon. Gordon tried to keep a steady pace; usually Wayne was very controlled, didn't twitch quite so much. "Yeah, you like it," Gordon was saying. "You like your Daddy fucking you, don't you. You're that dirty. That fucked up, that twisted, aren't you. You love your Daddy's cock."

There wasn't really a point at which Gordon might have been mortified. He still didn't really think about the things he said; his mouth sort of went on auto-pilot. But even if he had thought about it, he'd learned one thing as a beat cop, and a rookie: what you said when you thought you were going to die shouldn't be repeated, regretted, or remembered.

Your partner, if he heard your words, should pretend he didn't, because the things you said then weren't real. You might mean them at the time, you might even mean them after, but you would never mean them really. They were the random things, the inexplicable things, the unspeakable things, the things that could be true and not true, nonsensical and sage. They meant nothing.

One thing Gordon had said when he was about to die was that he talked exactly the same way when he fucked.

"Yeah," Wayne was saying. "Fuck, yeah; Jesus, Jim, fuck me."

"Why don't you just say it?" Gordon asked, his voice low and dirty by Wayne's ear as he fucked him from behind. His chest felt raw against Wayne's hard back, covered by his slick, expensive shirt. "You always make me say it, don't you, because you love getting fucked by your Daddy; you love Daddy giving it to you so hard. Just say it. You love taking your Daddy's cock."

Wayne's breath caught again, a desperate sounding _uh_.

"What are you," Gordon said, "afraid to say it? Don't want to admit how much you love your own Daddy fucking you? Haven't got the courage? Come on, say it." Gordon cupped Wayne's balls and whispered, "Don't be afraid, son."

Wayne made a choked sound. Gordon figured that was the breaking point. He kissed Wayne's sweaty scapula through his shirt, and moved his hand up to grip Wayne's cock. "Like that," he said, voice softer now. "Just like that, Daddy's got you, got my hand around your cock, you like that don't you, gonna take care of you. Daddy's got you. It's alright, son."

Wayne wasn't making much sound, but each breath was labored, and seemed to rattle all the way down his lungs, which meant he was holding it all in.

"It's alright if you like getting it from your Daddy. Alright, no one has to know. Know how much you love getting taken by your Daddy's cock, getting fucked from behind. No one has to know. Just me, I know, I know all about you, son. The way you like your Daddy holding you like this, stroking you, Daddy's hand around your cock and Daddy's cock inside you, telling you, it's going to be alright. It's going to be alright."

Wayne's body was going rigid, and Gordon couldn't remember the last time he'd been this close to someone, inside someone's secret like this, except of course Batman, who expected him to lie.

"Don't be afraid," Gordon said again, and without warning or a hoarse cry or any of those things you might expect, Wayne came.

One more thrust and Gordon was, too.

Afterwards he felt boneless, and sticky, and after the way Bruce had acted, and the things Gordon had said, Gordon thought he probably really should be petting Wayne's hair or something, but Gordon really just wanted to sleep.

After one long moment with Gordon collapsed atop him, Wayne got up, rolling Gordon off. It always amazed Gordon, how strong that boy was. It made him feel scrawny sometimes, but only sometimes, because most times he remembered he was just under fifty. Like now.

"How the hell am I supposed to go home in this suit, anyway?"

"Christ," Gordon said, and slung an arm over his eyes. He didn't understand how Wayne could walk.

There were some muffled sounds, and then the creak of the closet door opening. "Jesus, Jim, your clothes are such shit."

"If you mean they're not fucking Armani," Gordon grumbled.

"I only fucked Armani once," Wayne quipped.

Then there was the unmistakable rustle of clothing, and one of Gordon's eyes instinctively popped open. He hadn't realized before he was disappointed how much he wanted to see Wayne naked.

Wayne was inside the closet, and the door was open at the wrong angle. Gordon wondered whether Wayne had done it on purpose, and how he could have been conscious enough for that, and that he would have to fuck him harder next time.

When he came out of the closet, Wayne was wearing one of Gordon's ratty t-shirts and a pair of sweats. He had never even seen Wayne's forearms before, Gordon realized, not even in the tabloids. They looked hard and strong, Wayne's smooth skin with light hairs on the tops of them. He could see parts of Wayne's upper arms, too, bigger still, but not quite beefy. There was a large bruise starting at the elbow and disappearing up into the shirt, which was baggy on Gordon but tight on Wayne. There was a scar on the underside of his left forearm.

The marks made Gordon wonder if Wayne maybe had less of a clothes kink, and more of a kink for something far more serious. Maybe the bruises were evidence of the way he fucked his models and his pop stars, or possibly other old and grizzled cops or leather queens or who knew. Maybe he just didn't want Gordon to do it that way, or maybe he knew Gordon would have refused to play. Odd he'd know, considering the whole daddy thing. But if Gordon had been embarrassed at all about that, the sight of that bruise and scar would make him less so. Anyway, it was obvious Wayne liked things sick and twisted, which was fine by Gordon, as long as he did it his way.

"I can't believe you're wearing that," Gordon said.

"Better than this." Wayne wadded up the silk, underpaid children's labor, and thousands of dollars and threw the shirt and pants in Gordon's dirty laundry.

"Doesn't that need dry cleaning?"

"Dunno." Wayne shrugged, rooting through more of Gordon's clothes to find a jacket. "Alfred does all that. Better get going. Places to go, blondes to get drunk. You know how it is." Wayne sauntered out.

Ten minutes later, the buffalo wings arrived at the door. Gordon realized what he was supposed to have said when Wayne said he didn't know how he could go home in his suit. He should have said, "Don't go."

It hadn't even crossed his mind until Wayne was gone, and Gordon was eating the wings by himself.


	7. Chapter 7

They went on that way for a while. Wayne and Gordon had sex, had cheap lunches at sticky tables, had discussions about work and Wayne's nonprofit. The plans for the Police Foundation moved forward as several business leaders agreed to form the Board of Trustees. Gordon and Batman tried to figure out what lay beyond the drug ring and weapons dealing, which took up lots of nights, but sometimes Wayne came later in the night. Once or twice Wayne was waiting for him. Gordon never did get him a key.

And then it all started coming to a head. The holidays were starting up. Gordon and Batman were making headway, close to getting evidence they needed on Gambol, close to breaking the arms case. Wayne and the Board were going to sign the charter so the nonprofit could incorporate. Although incorporation was mostly a formality, the signing of the charter was the first official action of the nonprofit. The media had been playing it up, and Gordon had been asked several times whether he was excited about it. He could only say, "We'll see."

It was the first Thanksgiving Gordon had ever spent alone. He was at the MCU for most of it, with a lonely bare bones skeleton crew. The kids and Barbara's family were eating early; Gordon came to pick them up that evening. It felt wrong to see Barbara and not be with her, especially since he still loved her, and since he could see she still loved him too. But they could both see as easily that it would never work out, and though they would always care, this was best.

The kids didn't see it as easily. Their parents being together for that brief time upset them, and Jimmy asked when Mom and Dad were getting back together. Gordon took them back to his apartment, where they were too full to eat another dinner. Gordon got them ice cream instead.

It wasn't that day, or the next, but Gordon started thinking about how Bruce Wayne spent Thanksgiving. For a moment, he thought it was a ridiculous thought, because of course Wayne wasn't alone. He was always surrounded by people, in the papers, on the streets; it was hard to get away from them, actually. And Wayne was always smiling in the papers, having a good time, partying half or rather all the night.

But that was only for a moment. Gordon remembered Wayne that night at four in the morning, how he'd looked so completely wasted, Gordon later thought Wayne had been on drugs. Maybe he had been, but when Gordon recalled that night now, he thought Wayne looked more forlorn than anything else. You didn't party all night with beautiful, rich people—all of whom would probably be ecstatic to either love you, marry you, or fuck you through the floor—and then show up at an old policeman's door. Not unless you were Wayne; not unless you were lonely.

Gordon was well aware Wayne had all sorts of issues. He had to be, or else Wayne coming to him as he did would make no sense, and Gordon was a cop. Things had to make sense. But thinking of Wayne now, things were more clear to Gordon than they ever were. Wayne was probably just as alone for Thanksgiving as he was.

Of course Wayne could have found someone. Many someones, to be exact. But the kind of people who weren't going to spend Thanksgiving with their loved ones weren't the kind of people he probably wanted to be with anyway. Gordon was imagining Wayne and Alfred, a Thanksgiving feast and an empty penthouse suite. Wayne would remember his dead parents, think of his millions of beautiful, rich friends who didn't actually care. Even if Wayne was having a holiday party in his suite, right now—dozens of people and bottles of champagne—it would still feel empty.

Wayne came to Gordon's apartment the Sunday after Thanksgiving. He didn't bring up the holiday, ask about it, bring left-overs, or anything like that. He did find the rest of the ice cream in the freezer, though. He was always rooting through Gordon's food.

"Rocky road. That's my favorite."

"It was Babs's," Gordon said.

"Who?"

Gordon stared at him, and then realized that wasn't fair. He never talked about his kids. "My daughter."

"Right." Wayne was eating the ice cream from the box. "How old is she?"

"Six."

"She doing well?"

Gordon realized there was a reason he didn't talk about them. It wasn't Wayne's business. Still, he didn't want to be rude. "She got sick. Had too much too eat."

"Too much to eat?"

"It happens to some people who don't have the metabolism of Hoovers, Wayne," Gordon pointed out dryly.

"Blame my personal trainer. All this pilates shit. Weights, yoga, you name it. She works me so hard." Wayne winked and went on eating.

Gordon almost told him not to do that. Not over Babs's ice cream.

"Is Rocky Road her favorite flavor, too?" Wayne asked.

"I don't know," Gordon said, watching in absent detachment as Wayne fellated the spoon. "She said she wanted it. But then she threw up."

Wayne finished up the ice cream, threw the carton away. This could be said for him, at least he cleaned up when he cleaned Gordon out. He was rinsing the spoon when he said, "Bet you're a good dad."

"No," Gordon answered, still detached. "I'm really not."

"Maybe you don't play a lot of T-ball." Wayne was staring at the spoon under the faucet, the water washing it clean. "You make their world safer."

"Maybe that's why I did it at first." Maybe that was still why he did it, why Gordon worked so hard, risked his life, maybe that was it deep down. But the truth of it was, Gordon didn't think he'd be any good at T-ball, any of those things normal fathers did. He wasn't built that way. He was built for the ugliness of the world, its horrors. He wasn't good enough for much else.

"Reasons don't matter." Wayne shut off the water. "It's what you do that defines you."

"Maybe I'm a good enough man," Gordon said. "Doesn't make me a good father."

Gordon was pretty sure Wayne heard in that, "Doesn't make you a good son," with the way Wayne came toward him, pushed him against the counter, legs on either side of Gordon's. "Come here," Wayne said, and kissed him. He tasted like Babs's ice cream, and Jesus, that was wrong.

Gordon kissed back him hungrily.

* * *

Batman gave the GCPD Gambol three days before the signing of the charter for the Gotham City Police Foundation. Of course, the department didn't know it was Batman who gave them their next most wanted. Batman and Gordon met in the usual warehouse, where Batman told him a location and that he had to move quick, and that was all. Even considering their usual conversations, it was abrupt.

Gordon arrived at the location, cavalry in tow. It was mass chaos, drug deal obviously gone wrong, a cargo crate nearly full of AKs half dumped on the concrete, Gambol in the center of it all. That should have made it easy, but getting to him meant going through a line of fire, so Gambol still managed to slip away to a building near by. After a minute of that, Gordon dared the line and burst into the building, only to have Gambol land behind him, having exited the second story window.

The story, of course, was that he fell. Conveniently into a dumpster full of cushy trash. Gordon knew the truth, though he had no idea how Batman had managed to dodge that many bullets.

When they were booking Gambol, the officers started talking about what a stroke of luck it was. Some of them mentioned that a few days later, because of the signing of the charter for the Police Foundation, they'd probably be getting the real-time database as well, sensors for squad cars, lasers for examining crime scenes. Officer Renee Montoya said it was like Christmas coming early, and slapped Gordon on the back.

Two days later, the tabloids were in a twitter about the party Wayne was throwing, and apparently in the midst of. Wayne had bought a nightclub downtown, and the building on top of it. The party was apparently taking place in every part of it, and you could hear the music down the block. It had been going on all day and into last night, still in full throttle by the time the papers were printed. Meanwhile, more respectable papers hyped the charter signing to happen the next day. Anyone who put the two together speculated Wayne was merely celebrating in his usual extravagant fashion.

Then the next day came. Wayne did not, or not to sign the Police Foundation charter, anyway. The party still went on, Wayne reportedly in the center of it, while his Police Foundation project fell entirely apart.

When Wayne bailed on the charter signing, business leaders refused to sign the charter at all, completely withdrawing their support from the entire project. Others claimed they would not until Wayne showed; still others were on the fence. One or two signed the charter, but refused to make their promised initial contributions.

Lucius Fox, there as the representative of Wayne Enterprises, tried to corral the crumbling Board, but the business leaders had lost faith. They had gotten involved in the project for various reasons—because they remembered Wayne's parents, because they wanted to improve business relations with Wayne Enterprises, because they needed someone to fill the hole left in Gotham by Harvey Dent. No one had expected Wayne to do much work officially for the Police Foundation besides through scads of money at it, but they had loved Wayne as a leader, a figure-head, a symbol of power.

Fox tried to reassure them the charter could be signed well enough without Wayne. Fox was the CEO, and Wayne could sign later. They could all sign later, but some of the Board were so disgusted by Wayne's absence, they would not be coming back. Some lingered, dithering over the charter and claiming they might sign, until they learned where Wayne actually was. That he should miss the Board meeting for one of his infamous parties was evidence enough the Police Foundation would not be the symbol or hope or power they needed, and they, too, walked out.

The party, meanwhile, had taken on epic proportions. It was still going on by the time the newspapers were printing the news the next day about Wayne failing to sign the charter, and the flop of his nonprofit organization. Reporters tried to infiltrate the night club, but Wayne's private security was tight. The best photos to come out of it were mostly taken by those attending, grainy images of Wayne laid out, completely wasted.

When asked, plenty of attendees claimed to have been with Wayne—many at the same time in two different places. Rumors of his decadence and just how many women and how much booze were rampant. There didn't seem to be any verifiable claims of what he had been doing, why he had missed the Board meeting, why he'd thrown the party instead of attending to the nonprofit he'd set up. One reporter claimed to have gotten a word with Wayne. The alleged statements he got from the billionaire were: "What's an NPO?" and "Ruined the foundation? There isn't a stable foundation in Gotham. Too many of these f—ing caves."

Because all Gordon had said was, "We'll see," in response to all the hype behind the charter, people said they guessed he'd expected it. Gordon had expected many things. Not this.

He still couldn't say he was tremendously surprised, exactly. He did wonder for a brief moment whether it was personal, then decided that was egotistic. But maybe something in Wayne was indeed attempting to provoke a response. Anger, maybe, a reproach, disappointment. Gordon wasn't angry. And he wouldn't reproach Wayne because it wasn't his business. But if Wayne wanted disappointment—he had Gordon's, anyway.

That was what surprised Gordon the most, that he had invested enough in Wayne to feel let down. He hadn't believed any of the nonsense about Wayne replacing Dent, his parents, being a hero. Still, he had obviously hoped for—something.

It was around then, when Batman delivered the drug case and Wayne failed to deliver the Police Foundation, that Gordon noticed Batman and Bruce Wayne were the two most significant people in his life. It was strange, because Babs and Jimmy were still the most important to him, the ones he cared for the most. Barbara too, in a strange, painful way. But they were not the people he most thought of, nor the people whose lives impacted his.

The people who consumed most of his time and energies were a man who dressed up as a bat and fought in the dark, and a man who dressed up in business suits and played the socialite. One he barely saw, though so much of Gordon's work centered around Batman. When Gordon did see him it was only briefly, cloaked in shadow, as grainy and unreal as Wayne at his goddamn party. The other Gordon shouldn't see. Considering the circles they kept, by rights he only should see Wayne in bad tabloid-quality photos. Their meeting was mostly chance, and their continued relationship mostly touch-and-go. The two biggest people in his life were people Gordon barely knew, and never really stood a chance of knowing more.

Once the party at Wayne's new nightclub finally died down, Wayne himself went radio silent. The press practically knocked down his door for interviews, and the paparazzi were ever vigilant, but Wayne never left his penthouse suite. There were claims Wayne had eloped with a popstar in the middle of the party, or that he'd brought one home to his suite, or that he'd OD'ed and he had a private doctor in there attending him. The most popular rumor was that he had checked himself into rehab.

After a few days of the tabloids running the same bad photos of Wayne at the party, and everyone wondering where he was, Wayne finally talked to the reporters. Regarding the Police Foundation, he said, "Lost interest. It was a whim, you know? Got bored." When they asked him about the rest of the Board of Trustees, he said, "I wasn't even in on the business side. Everyone knew I couldn't handle that stuff. That was all Wayne Enterprises execs, way beyond my pay-grade," which earned him laughs. "Who'd've figured it'd fall apart without lil ole me? Or maybe the Board got bored too?" Wayne laughed.

There were new pictures, too, though Wayne looked awful. His skin was too pale, and there were dark circles under his eyes. They made Gordon think about the way Wayne kept his arms covered. And that made Gordon glad he'd seen said arms that one time, or else he'd believe the rehab stories, because something worse than Speed might be going on. Then he'd think about how there were other places Wayne had still kept hidden—legs. Even your torso could work, if you could get a vein. But most of the time, Gordon tried not to think of it at all.

Instead, over the next few weeks, he threw himself into work. There were always a lot of paperwork and meetings, being Commissioner, but there was the extra he put in because only he could work with Batman. The other officers assumed he just couldn't leave the field. That was true, too. After he'd been in the can about a week, Gambol gave up some intel, enough to verify that there was something bigger going on than drugs and the AKs. Gordon and Batman had been working on finding out what it was and who was behind it.

Gordon went back to their usual warehouse a few weeks later, and Batman didn't come.

That in itself wasn't particularly unusual. They had no set meeting times; Batman usually came when Gordon had new information and needed help. Gordon had long ago accepted this meant the Bat had some way of spying on him and the GCPD. Back when he had the signal, he wouldn't have stood for it, but as Batman's only connection to the police, he thought there could be some leniency. Still, Batman couldn't always know all the time when Gordon had important information to impart—though since they'd made the big bust, one would think this time, he would.

But Batman didn't come that night, and nor did he come the next night, or the next.

By then, Bruce Wayne had apparently recovered from his alcohol poisoning or sex marathon or whatever. He was back in the papers looking better than ever, and Gordon didn't understand the time when he'd found the man's looks abstract rather than attractive. The sharp, clean line of his broad shoulders, the thin, definitive shape of his mouth and its giga-watt smile—it was like a wet dream plastered on the grocery store magazine rack, and Gordon stopped buying the paper.

Wayne didn't come to Gordon's apartment any more. Didn't come to talk about the Police Foundation, either, and Gordon figured all of that was over. He could see from the news, Wayne was back to old tricks. The billionaire bought new cars and somehow ended up with them wrapped around telephone posts; he had hired the two living of the Three Tenors to sing carols at his Christmas party. Gordon also figured all of that meant Wayne was okay. Probably not addicted to heroin or any of the horrible things Gordon had considered.

Now that he was noticing these things, Gordon found it strange the two people most integral to his life were weaving in and out of it. Batman had been there to give them Gambol, but Wayne hadn't to sign the charter. Now Wayne, though not back in Gordon's life, was certainly back on the radar, whereas Batman seemed to have completely disappeared. Gordon would have thought it was odd they had both failed to show, except each happened at different times.

Another week went by, and at last Batman showed. He was already waiting at the warehouse when Gordon came, which made Gordon wonder how long he'd been there, since he'd no longer been coming every night. Gordon shared the information he had. When Batman spoke, he had to take even more breaths than usual to keep up his low rasp, which Gordon would have found amusing had the meeting not already felt off. Batman, in his usual fashion, had offered no explanation as to where he'd been.

"Getting your throat checked, possibly," Gordon said. He'd been less pleasant these past few weeks, with Christmas, without the kids, without Wayne, though it wasn't like he'd ever planned on having Wayne for goddamn Christmas. "Ever thought of lozenges?"

The shadows receded halfway in the midst of his bitter quip, which Gordon had mostly expected them to, except something was wrong. Gordon stepped forward, and Batman wasn't gone. Which could only mean one thing, since Batman could never resist cutting Gordon off in the middle of his wittiest repartee: Batman was waiting for Gordon to leave first. Which, in turn, could only mean, "You're hurt."

Silence from the shadows, which made Gordon want to gibe about whether it was an injury that necessitated sitting in dark corners, feeling sorry for yourself and moping, but he resisted. "What happened?" he asked instead.

Gordon took another step closer, and the shadows twitched.

"Let me," Gordon said, and realized once the words were out he sounded desperate. He didn't mean just _let me help_, he meant _let me get closer_, and by that he might have meant _trust me_, or maybe, _let me trust you_. Gordon didn't know about all that, but later when he thought about it he thought that in some ways it might have less to do with Batman at all, and more to do with his wife, his kids, and with Wayne.

But he didn't think about it then because the shadows twitched again and slid; it was obviously far more difficult to disappear into nowhere with whatever injury. In the end, though, Batman managed, because he was gone before Gordon had taken another step.

* * *

Batman didn't show again for a while. At least now Gordon knew why.

As for the other man mysteriously disappearing in his life, Gordon was pretty sure it was no mystery, and Wayne could be written off. The billionaire was still in the papers, just didn't have anything to do with Gordon any more. Gordon hadn't expected it to last. But somehow it still discomposed him.

It was worse because it was Christmas. Other apartments had lights strung up on the outside around the windows, sad strings with faulty bulbs, most of them. There were plastic wreaths on doors, and Gordon's neighbor had an electric menorah in the window, which was just as depressing. Gordon ate less, and smoked more, kept buying Pasta Roni but stopped drinking tomato juice. He beat off alone in his apartment, but it felt cold in there, even though he'd turned the heat way up.

He was supposed to get the kids for Christmas Eve, but they were so excited. They were afraid Santa wouldn't come if he thought they weren't home; Babs wanted to lay a trap for him; Jimmy wanted to set out cookies for him, carrots for the reindeer. Gordon took them out to dinner and had them back by six.

Christmas he spent down at the MCU again, because Chicago had been too far and he didn't want to go back there anyway, and Gordon hadn't anywhere else to go. Someone had hung up sad crepe paper streamers, and by the coffee there was a bowl of unlaced wassail, tepid to begin with and cold by noon. Later in the day someone turned the TV on, and there was Carol of the Bells by the Christmas Bell Choir, Santa in the Square, and Bruce Wayne's three million dollar tree outside Wayne Tower. Gordon told the officers to turn the TV off. They did, looking a little like a collective Bob Cratchit.

Gordon got the kids again the next day. They played with their gifts the whole time. Barbara said she hadn't been able to make them stop on Christmas, which made Gordon guess it was alright. They were happy, anyway, if not particularly interested in playing with their dad. Most the video and computer games were one player, and when Gordon tried them, he always got killed.

Several days later, Gordon finally saw Batman again. He seemed recovered. It had been almost a month since the Bat had given them Gambol, which Gordon guessed was enough time to recover from a bullet wound, though of course he couldn't be sure if that was what had been wrong. He asked, but received no answer, which was alright, seeing as he hadn't been expecting one.

Then Gordon had to go see the Mayor to update him on where they were with Gambol. Garcia started talking about New Years, which reminded Gordon there was one more holiday to get through. The Mayor was going to Wayne's New Years party, which was annually infamous. Garcia said he'd speak to Wayne about the Police Foundation. Gordon asked him please, not to bother. Garcia also said he was surprised Gordon hadn't been invited; the D.A., some judges, councilmen and whatnot were going. Gordon told him he wasn't surprised, and asked if he could go now.

Because he'd spent the holidays virtually alone thus far, or maybe just because he couldn't stand Stephens, Montoya and Bullock haranguing him about it any more, Gordon went to Montoya's New Years Eve party. There were a lot of people there besides just cops, everyone Montoya and her sister knew in the universe, apparently. A little before midnight, Gordon found himself talking to a brunette with big brown eyes in a red dress.

She was nice enough, and Gordon had had three flutes of champagne. It wasn't that Gordon couldn't hold his liquor. He was just tired and frustrated and he hated it, but he was so lonely, and Batman had gotten _shot_, Gotham could've lost him, he could have lost him, and he'd already lost his wife and kids and Wayne—well, Wayne . . . Then it was midnight and the brunette was kissing him.

He could do this, Gordon told himself, had to tell himself, because it wasn't just a midnight New Years kiss. They were moving into a bedroom, one of the spare rooms at Montoya's sister's house. It was cool and close in here, and quiet; the celebration was all background noise. Gordon could do this because it had been over eight months since he divorced his wife, and since Wayne, since Wayne . . .

Gordon made himself think about Wayne, what a stupid idea it had been to ever get involved. It hadn't seemed like getting involved at the time, since he'd never thought anything would come of it. He'd been rebounding off Barbara, and Wayne was the first thing to come along. He'd just been so attractive, so fucked up and needy, but needy in ways Gordon could handle, not needy in the way of so many whom he couldn't help.

There was this one time when Wayne had used Gordon's shower. Gordon hadn't gotten to see him naked, but Bruce had been wet afterward, hair slick and white dress shirt clinging to him. Bruce had been talking about something like skydiving or spelunking, and Gordon didn't give a shit and Bruce knew it, and smirked and leaned toward him. Gordon had tilted his head, but Bruce just leaned closer and stole Gordon's coffee from the counter behind him, and in that moment of nearness Gordon could smell him, wet and clean, coffee-snatching without even a trace of remorse.

Gordon had wanted to kiss him; he was nearly fifty and they'd just fucked not so long ago, but he had wanted to. Just kiss him, push him against the refrigerator and wipe that knowing smirk right off his face, but he hadn't, and all Gordon could think right now was how much he wished he had.

"I can't," Gordon said, and pulled away from the brunette.

"Sure," she said, and palmed his erection through his pants.

"No." His hand closed over her wrist, not hard but firm, and he pulled her hand away. "I can't. It's not right."

"I knew it," the brunette said, more disappointed than angry. She was half-drunk. "I just knew you were married."

"I'm not married."

"In a relationship?" She was sympathetic, willing to listen. Like him, she just wanted to be connected, didn't want to be alone.

"No," Gordon said.

"Bad break-up." She nodded knowingly.

"I'm sorry," Gordon said, and left.


	8. Chapter 8

The new year didn't start out brightly, but they never did in Gotham.

January passed, sullen and slow. Gordon had gotten used to being alone, just as he had gotten used to Wayne, just has he had gotten used to being divorced.

Then one night, when he and Batman weren't making any headway on Gambol's intel, Gordon decided to take some paperwork home. It was nine or so when the doorbell rang. Gordon got up to answer it, not thinking who it could be. He opened the door, and there was Wayne.

He didn't look apologetic or embarrassed or anything like that. Gordon stared at him a moment, then stood aside, almost force of habit, though he would have thought it would have worn away after two months. Wayne strode in, and Gordon shut the door.

"It's sleeting out there," Wayne was saying, just as if he'd never disappeared without reason or explanation. "Alfred won't even drive in this kind of weather."

"I wish drug dealers and hookers had the same frame of mind." Gordon's voice was flat. It was the only thing he could think of to say.

Wayne laughed, his deep, rich laugh. "I don't think drug dealers and hookers drive Bentleys."

"Maybe some do. You want coffee?" He should be asking, _where have you been?_ or _why are you back?_, but Gordon knew he wasn't going to.

"Coffee at this hour?" Wayne scoffed. "I'd be bouncing off the walls. Tell you what." He walked into the kitchen, and after a belated pause, Gordon followed. "Where's that tomato shit you always drink?" Wayne was already opening the fridge.

"I don't drink it any more."

"What? Thought it was like a staple or something."

Gordon took off his glasses, folded them up, put them on the counter. He took a step forward. "I don't have staples."

Wayne closed the refrigerator and turned back around. "Then what do you have?"

"I haven't been to the store." Gordon took a step closer. "Condoms."

Wayne laughed again. "Really?" Then he smiled, the smaller smile that somehow seemed more warm than the one with all the teeth. "That's fantastic, Jim." He was beaming.

Gordon kissed him. Pushed him against the fridge, like he'd been thinking about doing on New Years, and Wayne kissed him back.

When Wayne had walked in the door, Gordon had known he was there for a fuck. He'd also known he'd say yes. It was because he wanted it enough; denying it would be cutting off his nose to spite his face. But he didn't want to be desperate, to be the kind of person who would take anything, come crawling back and ask for more.

But now Gordon felt in control, very steady, and it was Wayne who felt desperate. Wayne was hurrying out of his designer greatcoat, letting it pool on the floor, stepping on it as he pulled Gordon closer and tore at him hungrily with his mouth, with teeth. Gordon grabbed Wayne's jaw, holding his mouth so he could kiss long, with leisure. Wayne's hands moved to Gordon's shirt, and Gordon pinned them against the refrigerator.

"God yes," Wayne breathed against his mouth. "God yes, Jim." He squirmed once in Gordon's firm grip, then was kissing Gordon again, pushing his tongue in his mouth.

Gordon ripped himself away. "Not here."

Wayne trampled on his coat some more, pulling Gordon to him. "Here."

"No." Gordon backed up. "Bedroom."

Wayne swore again. He swallowed, mouth obviously dry. "Yeah," he said, "God."

Gordon didn't move until Wayne did, following close behind. When they were inside, Wayne didn't seem able to help it, grabbed Gordon and started kissing him again. Gordon grabbed him back, pushed Wayne back until the door closed and Wayne's head thunked against it.

"Christ," Wayne said, in a kind of moan, pulling Gordon to him.

Gordon gripped Wayne's jaw and thunked his head back against the door again, hard enough for a loud thump to sound. "Goddammit, Jim," Wayne said, and canted his hips so Gordon could feel how hard he was. Gordon opened Wayne's pants for him, thrust his hand down to stroke his cock.

"No." Wayne pulled Gordon's hand down deeper, below cock and balls, back toward his hole. "Here," Wayne said. "I need you inside me."

Gordon took his hand away. "Get on the bed."

For a moment, as he had when Gordon told him to go to the bedroom, Wayne just stared. His eyes were dilated, dark with lust, his mouth red from kissing. Then he went and got on the bed.

Gordon waited another moment, then went there too. His mouth was on Wayne's again, and Wayne was taking off Gordon's shirt. Then he was kissing Gordon's neck, his shoulders, reaching for Gordon's belt. Wayne's hand hesitated a moment, and then was drawing Gordon's belt out of its loops completely. "I need you to make it hard," he said.

Gordon took the belt away. "Not like that," he said, and let the belt drop to the floor.

Wayne's hands went to unfasten Gordon's pants, and he was kissing him again. "Then fuck me," Wayne said. "Just fuck me through the mattress."

"You want me to punish you." Gordon squeezed Wayne's cock, so he would stop. Wayne, of course, didn't. He jerked opened Gordon's pants. "Turn over," Gordon said.

"Fuck," Wayne said, and obeyed, stomach down on the bed. When Gordon yanked down Wayne's pants, Wayne breathed, "Fuck, yeah."

"You've been bad," Gordon guessed. He put his hand on Wayne's ass, firm, pale, still with plenty of give.

"Fuck," Wayne said again. "Jim." He arched into Gordon's touch.

"You want me to punish you, and tell you how bad you've been," Gordon went on guessing. "You want Daddy to tell you you're a bad boy."

"Jim." Wayne's voice was going ragged.

"Maybe next time," Gordon said. He smoothed his hand over Wayne's ass again, then lowered his head, then he was kissing Wayne's crease. His hands pulled Wayne's cheeks apart; his lips found the tight ring of muscle and kissed him there, too. Then he was using his tongue, just licking, soothing, then slowly pushing in.

Gordon hadn't ever done this before. They might've gotten to it eventually; one reason Gordon liked fucking him, and knew Wayne liked him for it, too, was they liked it dirty. They liked it filthy and lowdown, because they were both alone and fucked up and didn't know where else to get it from, and this was the dirtiest thing Gordon could think of.

But that wasn't why Gordon had his tongue in Wayne's ass, wasn't why he was steadily thrusting it into him, mouth closed around Wayne's hole, sucking and licking and occasionally biting. It was because he wanted Wayne so much. He could fuck him through the mattress like Wayne wanted, hold his head down, yank his hair, pound into him until he could hear his balls slapping. Maybe he could make Wayne cry out, and it still wouldn't be close enough. It wouldn't be as deep inside of him as Gordon needed to be; it wouldn't be as intimate as this, as needy as this.

Gordon hadn't realized it until just now, but Wayne had hurt him. Some part of him had wanted to believe in the Police Foundation, believe that Wayne could do something for this city. Now the Board had fallen apart and nothing would ever come of it. And Gordon had been lonely, so alone, over the holidays, too, and he hadn't expected anything, but it had still hurt. All of it had hurt.

And Gordon didn't care.

If this was all he was going to get, he wanted to be in every part of Wayne, taste every part, know every part. So Gordon wasn't thinking about Wayne enjoying it, the twitches of muscle under his hands, against his mouth, around his tongue. He was thinking about eating Wayne out, about getting his face close enough, his moustache scraping Wayne raw, the smell of him, the unpleasant, musky, very human smell. He was thinking about how much he'd missed him, how close he wanted to be to him.

Wayne was a mess. He wasn't very articulate, but when Gordon finally pulled away and turned him back over, Wayne's face was bare and so open, looking somehow new. He grabbed Gordon's hand, didn't say anything, just pulled two fingers into his mouth, sucking hard, looking intent on it.

Gordon pulled his hand away and slid a finger into Wayne, easy because Wayne was already loose with Gordon's own saliva. "I want you," Wayne said. "I've wanted you so goddamn much; I couldn't . . . I tried, but I need you too much. I need you, Jim; I can't do it alone."

"Shh." Gordon started to pull his fingers out.

"Don't," Wayne said. "God, _don't_—"

"I'm just going to take them out for now, put some lube."

"I don't care." Wayne's hips rolled. "I want you."

"You need some." Gordon put the condom on himself, then smeared the lube on his fingers. He put them back in, steadying Wayne's hips. While he fingered Wayne, he smeared more on his sheathed cock. "You're too tight. Need to loosen you up, get you nice and slick. I don't want to hurt you." Gordon positioned himself, slid inside.

"Hurt me if you want," Wayne said. "Do anything."

"I'm not going to hurt you," Gordon said again. It didn't matter that he'd been hurt. He didn't care. He had Wayne, just for now, and he was going to make the most of it. "I'm going to do you like this," he told him. "Easy, like this. Nice and slow."

"I can't," Wayne said.

"I've got you." Gordon withdrew, then thrust again, steady, so in control it was hard to believe he wasn't shaking.

"Jesus, you make me—" Wayne grunted, twisting under him. "I'm gonna lose it."

"I've got you," Gordon said again, and gripped Wayne's cock, tight around the base.

"I need you." Wayne's hips bucked up. "I need you so much."

"It's alright. I'm here now." Gordon kissed him. "Say it again."

"I need you, Jim." Wayne was kissing him back, tasting himself in Gordon's mouth, his own mouth hungry. "Need you so much. I can't do it alone."

"I won't leave you," Gordon said. He wasn't even thinking about how it was Wayne who had left him, Wayne who had screwed him over, left him alone for so long. He was thinking about being needed, and how he never wanted this feeling to go away. His hand slid up to stroke Wayne's cock, bringing him off as he came inside Wayne's body. "I'm right here. I was always here."


	9. Chapter 9

Afterwards, Gordon collapsed on top of Wayne, lacking the energy to move. He was out of cigarettes, too, which made him realize he'd taken to smoking consistently after fucking because he liked Wayne to tarry afterwards, and wasn't that just pitiful. He thought Wayne would move out from under him any time, talk about the parties he had to be getting to, stealing Gordon's clothes, maybe.

Instead Wayne said, "I'm so fucking wiped. You better not kick in your sleep."

It was stupid, because Gordon had fallen asleep around him before. He wasn't young any more and they expended—a lot of energy, but this was different. It wasn't a catnap after a fuck Wayne was talking about. He was pulling off the covers and pulling them over himself, barely leaving any for Gordon. There wasn't room on the bed, either. It was a single, and for the first time Gordon thought about how cheap the box spring was, but Wayne didn't seem to have noticed.

Wayne slept like the dead. Gordon had always been a light sleeper, had to, being a cop, and it'd been so long since he spent the night with anyone that he didn't get much of sleep anyway. And Wayne was hot, almost like a blanket himself, which was good, since Wayne was still stealing all of them. It didn't help Wayne was still in his dress shirt and scratchy suit pants; even if they were designer they weren't exactly made for sleeping against. As for the heat, Gordon guessed Wayne had to do something with all that food he ate, didn't surprise him that incredible metabolism gave off the energy of a small furnace.

But it was good. Wayne had him trapped between himself and the wall, and he was stealing the covers. He snored a little and left no room for Gordon, and it was good.

It was around six am when Gordon finally woke up for the last time, which was nothing unusual. What was unusual was waking up beside Wayne, who still slept like a baby. In that face, Gordon couldn't see anything of the boy from the station, from the night his parents died. But he did look like the boy who'd gone to Joe Chill's trial. Gordon hadn't been there, but Wayne's face had been pasted on the papers, on the TV—his face, when it hadn't been his hand thrust in the cameras, the eyes above it looking angry and innocent. Gordon had paid attention because he'd been there that other night, seen what Chill had done to that child.

It reminded Gordon that for seven years after that, no one had seen or heard from Wayne. That must have been when Wayne met Henri Ducard, made sense that he'd been in Mongolia or wherever. Gordon wondered how many people knew about Ducard, how many people Wayne told. Gordon may never know the whole story, but it hadn't concerned him before. Now he wanted to know.

He wanted to know too what made Wayne come back, what had made him go away in the first place. He wanted to know if Wayne meant it, about not being able to do without Gordon, whether this running away and returning was going to be a recurring theme.

It was likely, if what Gordon had assumed about Wayne's feelings about his bisexuality was true. Possibly he feared being homosexual, couldn't face himself the way he was. He'd think it was just another way he was different than everyone else, screwed up, like how his parents died, even how he was so rich. And it'd be another thing the media chasing him like dogs would exploit. So he would run from it, try to put on another face to that media, to the world. He'd put on the playboy face, the façade of a man going at it with every other beautiful woman in sight, not shacking up with a old policeman a couple times a week, getting fucked up the ass and loving it.

Gordon looked at that boy, and wondered whether the next chapter of his life was really going to include this troubled, fucked up kid, who couldn't even face himself, couldn't admit to this, much less commit to it.

The worst of it was, Gordon didn't think that would be all bad. He didn't really deserve another commitment, and it wasn't like he wanted another family. He already had his own, and he couldn't be what they needed. He just wanted—something, and in the end, he wasn't sure he cared how much of a child Wayne really was.

He thought he might like it.

Gordon found Wayne's coat on the floor in the kitchen, laid it nicely over one of the kitchen chairs. He put on his ratty jogging sneakers, and figured Wayne would be gone by the time he got back. Maybe it was best that way. They had never had to have an awkward morning-after conversation before. He didn't want to have one.

Gordon slid out in his sweats and an undershirt, forgetting the stupid sweatband again. It was January and still dark out, but it wasn't long before he was sweating. The gas-station grocery store he jogged to every morning was about a mile south and a couple blocks over. He didn't go there because it was the best or least expensive or closest. Dinesh had been broken into so many times, Gordon got to know him back when he was Sergeant, and anyway, Gordon tried to support local business.

He bought his coffee and cigarettes, and couldn't help it, another box of condoms, which made Dinesh uncomfortable and pretend not to notice when he rang them up. Gordon downed the piss-poor coffee, thanked Dinesh, and took the plastic bag with him. False dawn was starting by the time he jogged back to his apartment.

"Look at you," Wayne said.

Gordon didn't even know where Wayne had found the clothes he was wearing. The long-sleeves t-shirt was something Gordon had worn maybe all of once; it was a counselor shirt from one of Jimmy's camps; there was a picture of a bear cub on the back. The house-pants were plaid and thin, the material of boxers, so worn they had holes. Gordon didn't even know how they'd survived the move to his apartment; he thought he'd thrown them away ages ago. "Look at you," Gordon said back, and snorted.

"I'm not all sweaty." Wayne took a sip from a milk carton he must have stolen from the refrigerator.

"I think that's expired."

"On its way." Wayne was watching very carefully as Gordon put the bag on the counter, eyes narrow. "Want some eggs?"

Gordon paused in the middle of toeing off his shoes. "Okay," he said, and finished taking them off.

"Good," Wayne said. "You gonna make us some?"

"Where do you get off?" Gordon said, not meaning anything by it, because he'd already decided he was never going to question Wayne about the Police Foundation, or where he'd been the past two months.

Luckily, Wayne read nothing into it. "The kitchen table?" he said, hopeful.

"Finish your milk."

"But Jim." Wayne's voice was bright. "You're all sweaty; it's turning me on, and those pants you're wearing are disgusting; I just want to get you out of them and lick you clean."

"Drink your milk," Gordon said again.

Wayne blinked, and then slowly began to smirk. He walked over to the sink and held the milk carton above it.

"Give me that." Gordon came over and grabbed it from him before Wayne could pour the milk out. "Go stand over by the table."

The barest pause, then Wayne went to stand by the table.

"Take off your pants."

Wayne pulled the elastic so it was down around his thighs, exposing bare ass. Gordon hadn't really hoped for more, and he'd expected less. "Hands on the table."

Wayne gripped either side of the flat board. He knew what was coming.

"Head down, son," Gordon said.

Wayne shuddered, and put his head down so the side of his face was on the table. Bent over the table so his ass was out there, bare to the air, Wayne looked at Gordon.

Gordon took a sip of the milk, which didn't taste sour at all.

"You have milk in your moustache." Wayne didn't seem at all cowed by the position he was in.

"Be quiet." Gordon wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then opened up the bag he'd gotten from the store. He got out a cigarette, couple of condoms, then walked over to the table. Pulled out the chair he'd put Wayne's greatcoat on earlier, sat down on it. He was right by Wayne's face. Gordon lit the cigarette and started smoking.

"Shit," Wayne said. He was still bent over the table at that uncomfortable angle, ass exposed, face turned flat on the table, watching Gordon leisurely suck his cigarette. "Motherfucking hell."

"You like it?"

"Jim." Wayne squirmed against the table in a way Gordon knew was to relieve his hard cock.

"Don't," Gordon said, and took another draw.

"I'm not going to do this," Wayne said, and didn't move. "I don't do this."

"You said anything."

"Shit," Wayne said again.

Gordon kept on smoking. After another few draws, his hand went down to his sweats, slipped inside. He pulled them down so Wayne could see. It was easy; they were loose and worn. Then he was stroking his own cock, long slow strokes, with Wayne bent over the table, watching him. Gordon took another draw while he stroked himself, tapped his cigarette on the ash tray near Wayne's face.

"You want this?" Gordon asked, giving his cock some more long, lazy strokes.

"Fuck," Wayne breathed. "Yeah."

Gordon stroked his cock with one hand, still smoking with the other. "Hm," he said, and it was too easy to leave Wayne there waiting, ass in the air, looking hungry and vulnerable. Gordon didn't wonder what made it so easy. He figured he'd better not.

"Do it already," Wayne said. "I'm about to fuck the table."

"Good." Gordon stubbed his cigarette out and got up.

After he got Wayne ready, he put the condom on. He entered Wayne without much preamble, standing while Wayne bent over the table. "You wanted me to punish you," Gordon said. "You want me to fuck you hard."

"Christ. Give it."

Gordon was fucking him already. "You want me to tell you you've been a bad boy. You want it dirty? Look at you, bent over the table, ass in the air, want it so bad. What a sick fuck you are."

Wayne moaned. He was perfect under Gordon, liquid and pliant and ready, so easy, eager for it. "God, Jim. Who'd've guessed you'd have that mouth . . ."

"You like it. You like being a shit so I have to set you straight."

Wayne snorted. "Not that straight."

Gordon buried a hand in Wayne's hair, pulled back his head, and pushed it hard back into the table.

"Shit," Wayne said, half a yelp of surprise, half of pain. "Do it again."

"You don't get to ask for anything."

"Don't," Wayne said, but he was agreeing. "Don't deserve it."

Gordon pulled one of Wayne's arms behind Wayne's back, jerking it up higher against Wayne's back so the muscle wrenched. Gordon had done this to enough criminals that it felt intensely wrong, which maybe should have horrified him and made him if possible even more hard. Wayne was grunting with each thrust, saying, "yeah" whenever Gordon wrenched his arm, which sounded like a grunt, too.

"You like to get hurt," Gordon said.

"Deserve it," Wayne answered.

Wayne was pushing his ass back for more; Gordon could hear the wet slap of skin. "You like it," Gordon said, jerking his arm again. "You like getting told you're filthy, how filthy and twisted you are."

"Yeah," Wayne said. "Just like that."

"Like getting punished." Gordon was thrusting harder now, on the edge, pulling Wayne's arm with every thrust. "Getting told you're a sick bastard. Say it." Wayne's thighs were masses of quivering muscle, and Gordon couldn't see his face. He had to hear it. "Say you like to hear it."

He heard Wayne swallow. "Yeah."

"You're such a fucking cunt," Gordon said, and he knew that was going to do it for him, if not Wayne. "Wet, greedy little hole, all opened up for me, spread out on the table. You're practically loose, now, getting fucked this hard. You like getting fucked this hard, punished like this?"

"More," Wayne said. "Come on, Jim; fuck me."

"Yeah. Nothing but a dirty, worthless cunt." Gordon punctuated each word with a thrust and then was coming, emptying himself into Wayne with hard strokes. He let Wayne's arm go and Wayne gripped the table, holding on while Gordon finished. At last Gordon was, and Wayne was still hard against the table, still tight around Gordon's softening cock.

Gordon pulled the condom off, but he was still slick and sticky against Wayne's ass. He slipped a sweaty hand down to Wayne's cock, closing around it, pulling Wayne back a bit from the table to give him room. He bent over Wayne now, cheek against the stupid cub on Wayne's shirt, breathing against Wayne's shoulder. "Need more?" he ask, turning his hand around Wayne's cock.

"God yes," Wayne croaked.

"Ask for it."

"Jim." Wayne was hoarse. "Jim, talk to me. Talk to me more, Jim."

"Shh." Gordon pressed down on Wayne's back, bearing him with his body harder down on the table. His hand moved on Wayne's cock. "You're a sick fuck," Gordon whispered. "You're a worthless shit. You're a cunt, son. You're a dirty, worthless cunt."

"Please." Wayne's voice was so low, it almost wasn't his.

Gordon was practically talking to the bear on Wayne's shirt, Jimmy's shirt, and Gordon was pretty sure Wayne wasn't the only one he was talking to. "You're damaged goods, you know that, kid? No one's ever going to want you. No one's ever going to be there waiting when you finally get your shit together. You've had enough time."

"Christ, Jim. Christ, don't stop."

"You had enough time, and you failed. Try as hard as you like, but you'll just keep on failing. Keep on failing everyone. You fucked everything up; you're fucked up. You can't ever fix things. Make them right."

"Please don't stop." His voice was catching in a way Gordon hadn't heard before, from anyone. It didn't sound like tears; it sounded like blades. "Please, Jim, don't—_please—don't_—"

"You're just not good enough. You'll never be good enough, son. You'll never live up—"

Gordon stopped because Wayne was coming, and in the next moment Gordon didn't even know what he'd been going to say anyway. As before, he was pretty sure he didn't want to know.

After Wayne was done and Gordon had caught most of it in his hand, Gordon pulled away. He picked the used condom up off the floor, threw it away, washed his hands. Fastened his pants as Wayne stood and pulled up his.

Wayne's face was red and his hair was sweaty and he still looked like some kind of housewife fantasy in Gordon's old castoff clothes. He grinned, and there was something dreadful about all of it, him looking so tousled and well-worked and happy. "I'll make those eggs," he said.

Gordon felt like he was going to throw up. "No, I will. You sit—or—or you can—"

"I want to," Wayne said. "Go have a shower."

When Gordon still hesitated, Wayne came over and kissed him. It was warm and teasing and very tender, and it was better in some ways than the sex. "Get going," Wayne told him. "You stink."

In the shower, Gordon shut off his brain. He'd gotten used to doing that, those two months without Wayne.

By the time he was rubbing a towel roughly over his thinning hair, he was able to begin to be afraid of all the trouble Wayne could make with a frying pan. He couldn't conceive of any reason Wayne should have gone near a cooking stove in his life. Gordon threw on his old brown suit, his glasses. He never even bothered trying to fix his hair any more.

When he came back to the kitchen, Wayne was finished, and the kitchen hadn't burned down. The eggs looked sort of gray and Wayne had dumped them messily onto paper plates, but Gordon's eggs never looked much different, and he didn't care anyway. They sat down at the table and ate, and Wayne didn't seem to at all remember what they'd just done on said table.

"These are really good," Gordon said, surprised. There were flavors in them he didn't recognize. Namely, flavors that weren't egg. "Delicious, actually. What is that?"

Wayne talked with his mouth half full. "James Gordon, your spice rack makes me sad," was all he said.

"Spice?"

"James Gordon, your life makes me sad."

Well, that was true for him, too. Gordon pushed away his plate, hesitated, and said, "I have to go to work."

Wayne pushed Gordon's plate back toward him. "Finish your eggs."

Gordon rolled his eyes. "I didn't make you finish your milk."

Wayne had a glass of milk half downed by his plate. "Yeah, you were just exercising your sick and twisted dominate tendencies."

Gordon set his jaw and steadfastly didn't look at Wayne. "You like it."

"Oh, I like it. I like it lots." Wayne smirked, and nudged Gordon's fork. "Doesn't mean you don't finish your breakfast. Come on, be good. I want to fatten you up. It's my new project."

Gordon finished his eggs. He thought for a couple minutes about what Wayne's old project had been, but that inevitably reminded him of what he'd done to Wayne on the table. Gordon kept thinking about twisted tendencies. When he got up to throw his paper plate away, he said, "About what I said."

"When?" Wayne got up too, put the forks in the sink.

"When you were on the table."

"Yeah." Wayne took a big glug of milk. "Yeah, that was good." He came toward Gordon, set his glass behind Gordon on the counter, trapped Gordon against the cabinets. "Real good," he said, and kissed Gordon again.

Gordon wanted to say, _I don't want you to believe what I said,_ because he didn't want anyone to believe that about themselves. He didn't want to believe it about himself, either.

He didn't know how to say it.

"We should do it again some time," Wayne was saying. He kissed him again, warmly, pressing up against him. "God, maybe right now."

"Wayne," Gordon said.

Wayne pushed his tongue in Gordon's mouth, worked his lips hard over Gordon's, then pulled away with a groan. "Yeah, I know. Work. Always work work work." Wayne went over and got his coat.

Gordon still didn't know how to say what he wanted.

"What time is it?" Wayne said, pulling his plush, expensive coat over Gordon's threadbare house clothes. "Think we missed the morning commuters?"

Gordon blinked. "It's not even nine. There'll still be traffic."

"Right. Maybe I'll walk a bit before I get on the rail. You should get going."

"Right," Gordon repeated slowly. It was the first time he had seen Wayne actively avoid publicity. Then again, Wayne had never left Gordon's house the morning after before. Gordon got his brief-case, turned off the lights, let them out of the apartment. Wayne started to go one way. Gordon watched him for the briefest of moments, still thinking of what to say. Then he turned to go the other way.

As soon as he did there was a hand on his shoulder, pushing him back, up against the door, warm lips kissing him all over again. "Forgot to thank you for breakfast," Wayne said. "Alfred's always telling me to mind my manners."

"You made breakfast," Gordon pointed out.

"Then I'm extra polite." Wayne still had Gordon trapped against the door. Gordon was still holding his briefcase. "Thank you," Wayne said again.

Gordon looked at Wayne's eyes. They were asking for something, and Gordon didn't know what. Gordon said, "Okay," anyway, and could feel his shoulders slumping.

Something in Wayne's face softened; then he was touching Gordon's sticking-up hair, the wrinkles near his eyes under his glasses, his moustache. "James Gordon," he said, for the third time that day. "You make me happy."

Then Wayne was walking away again. Gordon thought he should probably go after him. Say, _I shouldn't make you happy. Kid, it shouldn't be me_. But Gordon knew he wasn't going to stop fucking the boy, so it didn't really matter.

He didn't even know what it meant, anyway. With Wayne, it could be momentous or insignificant. Wayne could be just as happy with everyone he fucked, all the ones that gave him those bruises, everyone who gave him cocaine to snort at parties, everyone who worshipped him, sucked his cock, licked his ass, everyone who told him he was worthless and would never amount to anything.

Gordon's hand tightened on the brief case, and he walked in the other direction.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beware of potential squick. It's all dirty talk, but the . . . "daddy" issues embedded in the dirty talk are particularly strong. And I don't mean a lot of the "d" word. . . . I guess I mean a lot of the "c" word--as in "child". I just wanted to warn; you can skip sexy bits if need be. However, I myself am broken; that is why I wrote it. I'm okay with you letting me know what you think, too.

It was different than before.

Before, Wayne had claimed he wanted the "inside scoop" on the police work because he wanted to know what he was investing in; he wanted to be a unique snowflake. But without the Police Foundation, Wayne no longer had any pretense in being interested in Gordon's job. He also didn't have that excuse to swing by the MCU or bump into Gordon at City Hall. They never saw each other in public, and Wayne never made Gordon pick holes in the wall with bad service and plastic menus.

Their friendship wasn't an item in the press any more, less because Gordon wasn't sure what they had was a friendship, and more because the press wasn't aware they had any relationship at all any more. The papers and news channels and tabloids had been obsessed with the Police Foundation, even more so after it failed to get off the ground, but by now it was like beating a dead horse. There was no reason to believe—either for the media or for Gordon—that any interest in it would ever be revived. As for said media, it had moved on to bigger and better things, namely Wayne Fashion. According to the papers Bruce Wayne was going to sponsor his own line of cologne.

Gordon didn't care.

There were other differences, too. Wayne showed up more often, and he almost always stayed the night. He never bothered bringing anything from home. His clothes-snatching had gotten to be a bad habit, whereas before it had been a rare occurrence. He'd only done it that once before Thanksgiving. That had been good timing, seeing as how Gordon had kept thinking about Wayne and addiction, and how it couldn't be as bad as he feared because there hadn't been tracks. Idly, only idly, Gordon wondered sometimes whether Wayne had shown him his arms on purpose.

But Wayne took Gordon's long sleeve shirts, and jackets. Wore Gordon's faded boxers under Gordon's holey sweats. Used Gordon's toothbrush all the time, too, and Gordon's razors. Took Gordon's shampoo, which was ludicrous, considering Wayne had to be using some kind of product to make his hair look like that, which meant he probably showered again when he got home. But Gordon was pretty sure Wayne had kleptomania problems, on top of other issues. In more cynical moments he thought maybe it was better Wayne did it in his apartment instead of department stores, so Gordon wouldn't have to bring him up on charges.

Wayne was worst, of course, when it came to food. But these days he did things like make breakfast. His cooking was always very good. Gordon didn't know whether it was more surprising because it was Bruce Wayne, or because it was his own food, most of which was pre-prepared meal type stuff. Gordon tried to buy different kinds of things at the grocery store, because Wayne never contributed, not even to write a grocery list. Usually when Gordon bought something different, Wayne said, "The fuck were you thinking, Jim?", smelled it, and did something brilliant with it.

Gordon wasn't going to ask, but one time they were wolfing down the cabbage Wayne had made edible, and Wayne explained. It was after they had sucked each other off; Wayne only talked about Ducard after fucking.

"Yeah, we'd go on, like, these nature hikes," Wayne was saying. "Out there on the snow, the ice. Little campfires and tin cups; sometimes we'd bust a hole in the ice and catch a fish. Stew it up, or wrap it and stick it in the fire. He was major hardcore with the survival stuff, you know? Sometimes we'd fight with sticks and stuff. Just like a camping trip kids take with their dads."

Before, every once in a while, Gordon had ordered them delivery, like the wings. Last time Gordon had picked up the phone to call Uncle Li's, Wayne had taken it away and said something in harsh sounding Cantonese into the receiver. Then he'd made Gordon go pick the food up, and it was the best Uncle Li's Gordon had ever had. After that, Wayne ordered the take-out.

But the biggest difference was in Gordon. Before, he'd never expected this thing with Bruce Wayne to last. He'd thought every time was the final time. He'd never been sentimental about that. He'd been coldly clinical, in fact, both in his assessment of Wayne's motives and his own reaction to them. But Wayne had already left him the once.

It wasn't so much that Gordon expected Wayne to stay with him now, or be there. It was just that he didn't care if he got invested, now. He didn't feel the need to be so careful. When he and Barbara had finally gone through the divorce that had been coming on so long, he'd been numb. He'd still been numb, and then there was Wayne. Wayne had—helped. And then there hadn't been Wayne and there'd been nothing, nothing, and reality had come crashing down. If you asked Gordon, he'd already been through the worst.

He got Wayne a key. He bought the different things at the grocery store, and if Wayne wasn't there when he got home, he usually made the boxes of noodles that were enough for two. He bought more cigarettes, and condoms were a regular item. Once or twice he picked things up like a bottle of wine, a pack of cigars. Another three weeks, Wayne spending the night three, four nights a week, and Gordon bought a bigger mattress.

Gordon was more himself. The thought was odd, considering that before, Wayne hadn't affected Gordon's routines at all. Gordon had been so sure Wayne's interest had nothing to do with he himself, who he was. Furthermore, he'd been sure that nothing he could do would keep Wayne from losing that interest, so Gordon had always done whatever the hell he felt like without much thought for Wayne.

But now Gordon thought of Wayne, and it made him feel more like who he really was. When he thought of it now, it seemed unnatural to be fucking someone regularly and still act like you were alone. Gordon came home and told Wayne about work even though Wayne didn't ask any more, didn't seem the least interested any more. And Gordon asked about Wayne, about the spelunking and the skydiving, even about the cologne and the supermodels, even though he wasn't interested either. It was what you did, when you weren't alone. And Gordon cared, because Wayne was someone he shared with—shared his bed, his food, his cigarettes; shared, in some small degree, his life.

Gordon felt it in other parts of his life, too. He hadn't realized before how much he'd been on auto-pilot since Dent, since condemning Batman, since the divorce, how much of an empty shell he'd let himself become. He felt like he could smile again at work; despite all his secrets and clandestine betrayal, Montoya and Bullock's bickering was still ironic as hell. He felt easier, more comfortable, like he had after that first fuck with Wayne. But that had been mostly physical, and temporary. This wasn't about Wayne—not primarily, anyway. This was Gordon.

He could be better with Barbara, too. Thinking about how he'd expected, in such a detached, almost uninterested way, that Wayne wouldn't be coming back each time made Gordon realize how afraid he'd been of losing everything. He'd already lost so much with the kids, but he'd been desperately afraid of losing the rest, and in a way that wasn't detached or uninterested at all. It had paralyzed him, left him unable to ask for the things he wanted and needed.

He took the kids to ball games now. He took Jimmy to the library and he made Valentine's cards with Babs. Barbara always said yes. Of course she did. He'd never been afraid she'd keep his children from him; she wasn't that kind of woman. But he'd been so afraid he didn't deserve it, that he'd mess it up somehow, that they were better off without him.

"I'm so glad," Barbara told him. "You're spending time with them. They need their father; they're always so glad to see you. They wanted you. They love you so much."

"I didn't know," Gordon said, because he didn't know how to say what he did know.

"I kept trying to tell you, but you were—Jim, you were like a zombie, and I didn't know how to get through to you."

"I'm sorry. After . . . everything . . ." Dent, the divorce, he didn't need to explain these things.

"I know. I just—thought it was my fault, that there was something I could have done."

Barbara was getting choked up now, and Gordon hated that. He swallowed hard. "Honey, it was never you."

She fell into his arms. "It was so hard. And I was alone, but I had the kids, and Mom, and you were just—you didn't have anyone. You always took it on yourself; that was what was wrong, why we won't ever . . ."

"Barbara," Gordon said again. "Barbara," and pet her hair.

"I still love you, you know," Barbara said. "Part of me always will. It hurt me, to see you hurt like that."

"I still love you too."

There was a moment, with her in his arms, and all was right with the world. And then she pulled away, and there was another moment—with her nose runny and red, her eyes so liquid and beautiful. A strand of her hair was in his mouth; other stray strands were sticking to her face, and she still loved him.

This was always the problem, why their marriage had lasted as long as it had. He took the most dangerous cases; he worked with Batman; he put his life on the line, and wouldn't let anyone else pick up the slack. Barbara tried to cope, take care of the kids because he was never there, be there for him when he was, though he never shared. Then he'd do something like fake his own death and not tell her. Then Dent had almost killed Jimmy and that had been the end.

But then there were moments like this. It didn't matter that the logistics didn't work out, that their ways of life were so completely different, that the things they needed from each other were constantly at odds. Moments like this made up for all that, because they loved each other. Because he loved the way she knew him, and could forgive him, and the press of her breasts against his chest like this. And she loved—something in him, for the life of him, he didn't know what, but he could see it in her eyes in moments like this, and it had always been too much before. Too much to pull away from, too much to give up.

Realization dawned in her face. As she pulled away, so did the moment. She wiped her nose with her wrist and God help him, that was just as beautiful. "I—we can't," she said. "Jim, you should know. What I said, about loving you, it's true. But I'm—I have a boyfriend."

_So do I,_ Gordon almost said, but Wayne wasn't his boyfriend at all. Still, somehow, that stray thought of Wayne made it easier to pull back from her as she had from him.

"I wanted to talk to you about it, but you were such a wall, I didn't know how. I thought—I thought you might be angry."

"How could I be angry?"

She shook her head. "It hasn't been a year, and—in some ways, I thought it might be easier for the kids. Jimmy still thought you and me, that we'll get back together. Now he's—a little better. But you know, seeing their mother with another man—I'll . . . I can wait, if we decide it's better."

"Come here," Gordon said.

She hesitated.

"I said, come here." Gordon went to her, cupped her face in his hands. Leaned down and kissed her forehead, had to close his eyes against memories of other kisses, less innocent kisses. "Honey," he said softly. "You deserve all the love the world has to give you."

He thought she might be blinking back more tears, but when she looked up at him, her eyes were clear and strong. He'd loved her so much for that. "So do you," she said. "I want you to. I want you to find someone who can—can handle it, someone like you. I don't want you to be alone."

Bruce Wayne didn't love him, but Gordon didn't feel alone any more.

He didn't tell her that. After all, they were divorced. The main reason was because he took so much on himself, didn't share it. However many other things changed, that wasn't going to.

* * *

Things changed with Batman, too. When Gordon thought about it, he'd reacted to Batman much as he had Bruce Wayne strolling into his life. Both had been unasked for, undreamed of. But he had needed both of them; they had filled holes in various places he hadn't known before could be filled. Each time either appeared, Gordon had expected it to be the last. He'd taken as much as either gave him without daring to question it or ask for more.

But it was different now.

"How long do you plan to keep this up?" Gordon asked one night, when he met Batman in their usual warehouse. "The most-wanted, cop-killer, fugitive business?"

"People don't need the truth," Batman rasped.

"They do, but that's not really what I'm talking about." Of course, Gordon had thought often of clearing Batman's name, finding a way to work with him that didn't involve having to hide any progress they made from the entire department Gordon was supposed to be running. He'd brought it up once or twice to Batman, but never pushed it before. Batman had sacrificed the rest of the world; the public feared him now and reviled him; police were ready to shoot on sight. If Batman had so willingly given them up, he could just as easily give up Gordon.

The difference now was Gordon wasn't afraid of losing any more.

"It's not going to work," Gordon explained, "if you're completely disconnected. We need to be really together on this. I need to know everything, where you'll be, how you're getting this intel, how to contact you."

"I work alone," Batman said.

"Really? What am I, mashed potatoes?"

Batman ignored the sarcasm, picking up the thread Gordon had interrupted earlier, talking about the plans they had to use Gambol's intel as bait.

Gordon interrupted again. "It doesn't help that everyone is gunning for you. Second you try to crack a case this big, you're going to have the perps and the cops turning as one to take you down."

"I don't require your concern, Commissioner."

"I think you do, actually. Who do you have in this? Who can help you? You can't do everything alone, and you can't run from everyone. Every man has a breaking point," Gordon said, because he'd passed his. "Even you." Gordon stepped closer to emphasize his point, and saw what he should have seen before.

Batman, naturally, was gone.

* * *

"You ever had a coworker who just wouldn't listen?" Gordon asked Wayne one night not long after his conversation with Batman. Gordon was smoking by the window, just in a wife beater and boxers. Wayne was lying across the bed, still dressed of course, beer in one hand. He'd brought Gordon's horrible little TV in there and was channel surfing.

"Work?" Wayne flipped the channel again, raising an incredulous brow.

"You must've done it once in your life. Or something like it."

Wayne scowled. "Maybe. Three times. There were these hot Argentinean girls, just turning twenty-one—they were triplets, get it—and to celebrate we—but no." He flipped another channel. "I think they're calling that 'play' these days. I don't know this 'work' thing."

Gordon rolled his eyes, turned back to the window. "Fine."

"So, some coworker?" Wayne turned off the TV and threw aside the remote. "Do you even have coworkers? You're supposed to be in charge. Can't you just tell 'em to do whatever?"

"This one . . . doesn't follow rules so well."

"Come on, Commissioner. You're the boss man. The big kahuna. It really turns me on, you being all powerful and in control."

Gordon, as he often was with Wayne, was surprised into a laugh. "Yes, I know." He looked at Wayne fondly and thought of Batman. "He's a detective. We have some side projects, a few things we work on together. The only problem is, he doesn't really work together."

"Bullock again?"

"No. This detective . . . he doesn't have a partner. I'm . . . not his partner." Gordon swallowed. This was hard. "I probably haven't talked about him before. Just leave him to do his own thing, mostly, because he's good at it."

"Ah," Wayne said lightly. He turned back to look at the TV. He brought the beer to his mouth, but didn't take a sip, brought it back down. His thumb rubbed absently on the label of the bottle. Finally, he repeated, "Good at it?"

"Extremely." Gordon nodded vigorously; this was easier. "Very dedicated, thorough. Clever, good with plans, traps. Takes action, improvises. Intimidating, you know, that's good with suspects. Good nose, lots of sources, always does his homework. Creative."

Still watching the blank TV, Wayne took a steady sip of beer, hand measured and even holding the bottle. "You boning this guy, or what?" he asked.

The cigarette was halfway up to Gordon's mouth; it paused as if Gordon's hand was stuck in mid-air. "What?"

Wayne shrugged. "Way you describe him, sounds like you are."

It had never occurred to Gordon that Wayne could think he was sleeping around with another man. He'd thought Wayne knew Gordon only had him. Gordon wondered whether Wayne was jealous. He wasn't sure how that made him feel, exactly, other than it did make him feel something, something strange welling in his chest, under his finger-tips.

The only thing was, the thought of sleeping with Batman was so patently ridiculous, the feeling was soon gone.

Gordon stubbed out his cigarette. "No. I'm not—ah, boning him."

Wayne just nodded. "What's he like?"

"I told you. He's an amazing detective."

"But I mean, what's he like? As a person. What do you make of him?"

"Gruff. Not very friendly." Gordon watched Wayne closely as he described Batman, trying to figure out the jealousy angle. Wayne was rubbing the label on the bottle again, looking like he wasn't listening, which sometimes meant he was. "Secretive," Gordon went on. "Sort of moody, over-serious. Melodramatic, a bit. Sometimes I think he might have a sense of humor, but with this guy, you just can't tell."

"Ever think, with a guy like that," Wayne began. He stopped rubbing the bottle. His mouth twisted. "A guy like that might have issues. A reason he is the way he is."

"Everyone has a reason." Gordon was still careful. "Hell. Lots of reasons. But I still need to work with the guy."

Turning back again to the blank TV, Wayne nodded, took another sip of beer. "Some people aren't built for that, I guess."

"No," Gordon said. "You're right. About reasons, I mean. Maybe he does. It's a good thing to keep in mind."

"Dunno."

Wayne had finished the first beer and opened a second bottle when he said, "Hey, thought of a coworker I didn't get along with."

"Oh?"

"Had this partner for this project in eleventh grade." Wayne took a sip of his beer. "Wouldn't do a thing I told him. I wanted to do that tri-board poster thing, like you do for science projects. Thought I'd get someone at Wayne Enterprises to do a computer program to explain it, ask NASA for their input. You know, normal stuff. Except that little fucker of a partner kept wanting to do weird-ass experiments instead. He messed up my model."

"What did you do?" Gordon couldn't help but be morbidly fascinated. Mostly about the NASA part. "With your partner, I mean."

Wayne shrugged again. "Kid got expelled, I think."

"Expelled? For not doing it your way?"

"How does it go? I knew people who knew people."

Gordon blinked, because Wayne was talking about highschool.

Wayne took another sip of his beer. "No, that's not it. How does it go." His voice was flat. "It's, 'I knew people who used to know my parents.'"

Wayne sounded casual. Gordon knew it wasn't. He thought about what Wayne had said about issues, and thought maybe Wayne was trying to tell him something. But, "Did you like your school?" was all Gordon could think of to say.

"It was kind of stuffy. Confining."

"Was it private?"

"Yeah, boarding. All boys. Had a headmaster, that sort of thing." Wayne looked over at Gordon. "We had to wear uniforms," he said, smirking sort of. "I had this ugly blazer set, with these striped ties. Alfred dry-cleaned them every week. Or bought new ones. Who knows."

And somehow, the way Wayne was talking, it wasn't just about how much the legacy of the Waynes must have damaged the remaining scion bearing that name; it was about Wayne at his prep school. Probably where he first started fucking around with boys, sneaking behind the football stands for an illicit toke, wearing one of those stupid, godawful striped ties, and Gordon didn't know why it turned him on.

Christ, he was too old for this shit.

"What were you like?" Gordon couldn't help himself. "In school."

"Dunno. I guess I got sort of rebellious. Around seventeen, maybe."

"I bet you were a little shit," Gordon observed, not meaning it as a condemnation.

Wayne shrugged again. "They were pretty hard core at Rosford. But I didn't get in trouble that much. The Headmaster, the rest, they'd let people—people like me—get away with things. I don't know. It pissed me off. I'd act out more."

Gordon stood up. "Had trouble with authority, did you?"

"Hm?" Wayne looked over at him, Gordon coming toward him, then said, "Oh, yeah. You like that? Me being a bad, naughty boy?" Gordon was standing over him now, leaned down to kiss him. "It was the striped ties, wasn't it?" Wayne asked, and now Gordon knew what that smirk had been about.

"You know me pretty well."

"Yeah." Wayne was finished with his beer. Put it aside, pulled Gordon in for another kiss. "Better than you do."

"Yeah?" Gordon asked.

"Yeah."

"Show me." Gordon got on the bed, started kissing Wayne. "Show me how well you know me."

"I know," Wayne said. He had his pants open, fingers lubed up, slipping between his legs. "I know you're thinking of me, when I was a kid, wearing one of those stupid school ties, being such a bad boy, and you want to fuck me."

"That's right." Gordon reached over for a condom, opened it up, pulled it on.

"A-plus?"

"Don't." Gordon pushed into him, felt tight heat squeeze around him. It felt new every time.

"Anything you say."

Gordon moved, felt that strong, young body arch beneath him. Sometimes Wayne was sensitive, shuddering against every move Gordon made. Tonight was one of those nights, with Wayne holding tight enough to bruise onto Gordon's shoulders. Staring him right in the eyes and talking to him, intense, as if imparting battle plans instead of begging for different ways for Gordon to fuck him.

"I know you," Wayne was saying again. "If you'd known me then, you'd've tried to stop me. Tried to punish me. Tried to _fix_ me."

"I'd've tried to help you," Gordon said. Sometimes he liked to touch Wayne's hair. It was silky, and so soft. It was billionaire's hair; Gordon didn't care. He wanted to smell it and feel it sift through his fingers, the look on Wayne's face. He was still fucking Wayne, nice and slow, long withdrawals with firm, hard thrusts that made Wayne buck up under him.

"That's when I started." Wayne's face tightened at the next thrust, as though as he was refusing to show the emotion of his body in his face. "Started doing shit like—jump off buildings. Rappelling, hang-gliding, getting in fights. Started doing drugs. Started fucking boys."

"Nothing wrong with that," Gordon said, pushing in again.

"I know you. You're thinking, if you'd've been there, you would've stopped me."

"Not from fucking boys. I like that part." Gordon kissed him. "You get fucked so nice. So good. You're doing so good."

"Would you have fucked me then?"

"Shit." Gordon's body jerked, pushed too hard. Wayne seemed to like it, which wasn't anything unusual. "Wayne—" Gordon started to pull back.

"No." Wayne's hands still gripped Gordon's shoulders tightly. His legs came up to pin Gordon with his knees. "Say you would have. Just pretend you would have. I was just a kid. A little shit, just like you said. I was a fuck up, and you would've fucked me. Nice and good when I behaved, hard and rough when I was bad. I would've trusted you, and you would have fucked me. Pretend you would have. Pretend you are right now."

Gordon shuddered again, and it wasn't right but his cock was harder than ever. "Then—then you were still . . . innocent."

"I was going to kill someone once." Wayne's ankles were crossed behind Gordon's back, and he kept taking it and taking it and taking it. "Bought a gun. Wasn't that old. Still a kid. I was going to do it. Would that have made you mad?"

Gordon grunted, yanked Wayne's hair. Bit Wayne's mouth, bruising it, teeth scraping Wayne's narrow lips, the soft parts inside.

"Would you have slapped me for it?" Wayne persisted. "How many times? Twice?"

"No," Gordon told him, teeth harsh against Wayne's neck. "I'd've beat the shit out of you."

"Jesus." Wayne flexed inner muscles, tight around Gordon's cock. "Jesus, Jim. You'd have made it so good," Wayne said. "Made me so good. I'd've done all that—driving fast cars too fast. Motorcycles, crashing the fucking—Bentley—just so you would get mad. Just so you could make it right. Your cock, God, your big hard cock, down my throat—Jim, have you got any idea how much I just wanted to be on my knees—"

Gordon's hands were tight in Wayne's hair now, no longer petting, just holding on. "You weren't the same. You were still—"

"An idiot—"

"—naïve. Raw." _The world hadn't touched you so much, made you into such a—_, but Gordon didn't know what to say. "You could be—true. You didn't have to—have to lie."

Wayne made a tight sound, quelled with a hitched breath. After that wrenching sound, he panted out again, "I know you. I know you think that little boy is still in here somewhere. It's what turns you on, isn't it? So just pretend. Pretend I'm that kid. That child. Say you'll fuck me. _Lie_," Wayne said, looking straight into his eyes. "Lie: you do it just as well as me."

Gordon shuddered, started fucking hard, forceful jerks of his hips. "Yeah. You want it? Yeah, I'd've fucked you."

"You'd have punished me," Wayne repeated. "You'd have been so good."

"I'd've fucked you so hard," Gordon agreed. "Made you get down on your knees, just like you wanted, so you could have cock down your throat. Like you wanted." Wayne was making sounds, controlled, violent _huh_s. "I would have fucked you. Your innocence, all that sweet fucking purity, they hadn't got to yet, your sweet—untouched—"

"Yeah." Wayne's face was right by his, so they didn't have to look at each other any more. "So good."

"Would've made you mine. Would've—protected you—wouldn't let them—touch you—"

Wayne's voice was by Gordon's ear, low with hot breath down Gordon's neck. "What about right after—it happened. Everything went to shit; I was only—want to hear about then? Would you have been there for me then?"

"Shit," Gordon said again, caught his breath as Wayne rolled his hips. "Shit, yes."

"I was all alone. Kept to myself. Didn't have friends. Because everyone knew. Didn't talk about it, but they looked at me, and they knew. They whispered. Orphan. Little orphan boy. I was by myself. I was—I was so fucking—_scared_—"

Wayne was so open it was easy, easy to push inside of him again and again and again.

"Would you have fucked me then?" Wayne persisted. "Fucked my tight little innocent virgin ass? Opened me up, gotten me all wet and ready for Daddy, let me have it?"

"Yes," Gordon had said, because Wayne had told him to lie.

And Gordon was good at it, because sometimes, in spite of himself, he believed himself. (Sometimes he even believed what he told the world of Batman, that the world would have been better without him—)

"Yeah," Wayne said. "I know you. You like thinking of me that young. That innocent. You like me being a good little boy, giving it up to you, don't you."

"You're so good. Untouched." Gordon was driving into him hard, sweaty, kissing Wayne messily. "You're so fucking sweet."

"I know," Wayne panted again, "you like to think of me that way sometimes. Young, innocent, that little kid. Turns you on, doesn't it? Makes you so fucking horny. So fucking ready for it. I know why. Because then you think I'm someone you can still save."

"Christ, son." Gordon was coming, big hard shudders, and he was still in Wayne, still catching his breath, when he said, "I can still save you." Gordon's hand tightened again on Wayne's still unsatisfied cock. As if to prove a point, he began to pull.


	11. Chapter 11

Though several businessmen had signed the charter, the Police Foundation Wayne had started never went through with its original plans. Lucius Fox had signed the charter, of course, but without Wayne the nonprofit was dead.

In March an anonymous donation was given to the GCPD for twice the amount the nonprofit had projected to put together for its first year incorporated. The donation amounted to nearly twenty million dollars, and was enough to pay for the real-time database and then some.

Gordon had no doubt it was Wayne. Though there were other rich families still in Gotham, none had money like Wayne, and any other would have had no reason to donate anonymously. The press barely made mention of the donation, and didn't bother to follow the dots and draw the line to Wayne. They didn't seem interested in charities if Wayne wasn't plastering his smile on them as well as his money; the media was far too busy salivating over the cologne and now new line of leather products. Anonymous donations just weren't as flashy and exciting as the nonprofit had been.

Of course, in the end, the nonprofit would have been more beneficial, too. It would have been a long term help for the GCPD, and thus for Gotham City. It would have inspired other business and civic leaders; it would have set an example. It would have given the people of Gotham something to believe in, besides the idea that Batman had betrayed them. It would give them something to look forward to, instead of back at their murdered hero Harvey Dent. It would have given future generations something to hold on to, children something to dream for. Wayne dumping money on the department now and then would not do much more than effect some immediate quick fix-its, and squander all their careful budget planning.

Gordon didn't think Wayne was hiding, exactly. He was pretty sure Wayne was just no longer interested in police funding, or—at the moment—charitable causes. Any time through the entire organization of the nonprofit and its charter the year previous, Wayne could have donated almost as much as the Board put together could have, all on his own. But then it hadn't been about the money; it had been about showing off his generosity, about convincing Gotham he was the second coming. It had been about attention, as it always was with Wayne, and getting a different sort than he usually got. But it had been a project, as they usually were, and he had gotten bored, as he usually did.

No doubt for this donation, he'd barely even thought about it. He could have mentioned to Alfred at any old time, "This needs to be dry-cleaned; let's have a party, and oh yeah, contact Fox about giving the GCPD twenty-mil or so. Also, I want a pony."

Maybe he had thought about it. Maybe he'd even thought of Gordon, and this was another kind of payment, as Gordon had feared before. Maybe he thought Gordon could be bought. Gordon didn't care, just as he hadn't when Wayne had fallen through on the Foundation. He'd keep fucking Wayne whether he was a world class philanthropist or playboy, no matter whether one disappointed him or not. No matter whether Wayne thought he was just a whore.

* * *

Gordon didn't talk that much more about Batman, but he did talk to Wayne about work more than ever, even more than he had back when Wayne had been asking. It was easier somehow. Then, it had been about the Police Foundation, though Gordon had suspected that was a pretext for something Wayne wanted from him besides sex; Gordon didn't know what. But now it was just about Gordon, and Wayne.

And Wayne paid attention, less with the amused detachment he had listened with back in the days of the Police Foundation, and more with semi-seriousness. He still had interesting insights. Gordon thought sometimes about Wayne saying Batman had issues, and it helped Gordon to work with the Bat better. But then there were the insights about the D.A.

Gordon had been complaining about the new prosecutor, how weak-willed he was, how Gordon suspected him of taking bribes but couldn't make anything stick. "He must be new," Wayne said. They were in bed, smoking. "You work with the D.A. a lot?"

"We just catch the crooks. It's him who puts them away."

"You must have known Harvey Dent, then."

Gordon barely paused in the midst of bringing the cigarette back to his lips. "Yeah. He was easier."

"I'll bet. He was a great man."

Gordon tried to change the subject back to the new D.A., but Wayne persisted.

"I believed in Harvey," Wayne said, that stupid campaign phrase. "Threw him a fund-raiser; did you know that? Thought he could make Gotham better. And here you thought the Police Foundation was my first attempt at philanthropy."

It was the first time Wayne had mentioned the nonprofit since he failed to sign his own charter.

"See, I was trying to make Gotham better too," Wayne went on. "I thought, 'if I can get together some influential people, rolling in dough, I can be as good as Harvey.' You think I could have been as good as Harvey?"

"I guess we'll never know." Gordon wished he had a cigarette, but he was already smoking one.

"Yeah." Wayne puffed on his own. "That Foundation," he began again, suddenly. "What a bunch of bullshit. I throw one little party, miss one little meeting, and the whole thing falls apart. Who'd have thought, huh?"

"So you said." Gordon's voice was very careful. "In the papers."

"Yeah, the papers. The people love their papers, don't they? They really need to be spoon-fed, someone holding their hand the whole way. And you know what I figure? It's too much for one man, that responsibility. No one can do it. Not even Harvey, and he was the best of us."

"Some men try." Gordon wasn't trying to push it. He was just thinking of Batman. Of himself.

Wayne was silent for a while. At last he said, "I don't think I'm built that way. It's too slow, too tame. Imagine me, running charities and lobbying causes all day."

"I've imagined."

"That nonprofit charter shit was the most boring thing I ever did," Wayne said, confirming all Gordon's suspicions. "Nothing ever got done; no one ever fucking moved. Haven't got the fucking patience. I could do ten times better by myself in half the time." Wayne smoked some more. "Bet he would have been a good lay. Harvey," he elucidated. "I'd've screwed him good."

"I guess he was good looking," Gordon said after a while, trying not to think of Harvey's face when he had died. Trying not to think of Harvey's mind.

"You guess? You wouldn't have tapped that?"

Gordon's voice had gone blank. "I was married."

"Weren't you friends?"

"I really only knew him professionally." The lies flowed fairly smoothly. "He was a good colleague, I suppose."

"Of course he was. Honest. Fair." Wayne took a draw. "Just."

"Yes." Gordon had to say it, because he had said those things himself, just after Dent tried to kill him.

"He would have made Gotham a better place. Would have given it a brighter future. At the very least, made it safer for us. For our families." When Gordon didn't say anything, Wayne prodded, "Don't you think?"

"Yes." It was like Wayne was goading him, but of course, he couldn't know what had happened with Dent. Wayne didn't know, Gordon told himself, and tried to let it go.

"Did he ever meet your family?" Wayne asked.

"Don't think so."

Wayne was still smoking. "Bet you're real sad he got murdered."

Maybe a bit of it was on purpose after all. Maybe Wayne was jealous, knowing Gordon knew Dent, with Dent so handsome and well-liked, Dent seemingly succeeding in the things at which Wayne had failed. Wayne didn't know Dent had failed more spectacularly, more horribly.

For the first time, Gordon wanted to tell someone. He didn't want to tell the people who deserved to know, the people who had anything to do with it, the people who might have cleared Batman's name. He wanted to tell Wayne. Gordon needed it, in that moment, because of the way confessions could sometimes be declarations.

Gordon thought of Batman and of honor, and remained silent.

"Too bad you didn't know him better." Wayne went on. "I bet if he had lived your families would have got on. Like white on rice. He'd've loved your wife. Your kids. Especially your boy. Bet your son would've looked up to Harvey. You could do that with Harvey. Bet your son would've thought he was a real hero."

"Maybe."

"If he had lived, I bet you could have caught the Batman. I bet Harvey would have made him pay for his crimes."

Even if Wayne did have some petty agenda, he didn't know the truth. He didn't know the memories that were burning back into Gordon's brain with this sort of talk. He didn't know what had happened, how his wife had cried, after, how the children had been in a state of shock for so long. Wayne didn't know how much it had hurt Gordon to denounce the one person he still believed in, didn't know how much the lies had cost his family. Didn't know all this was behind the divorce, behind how Gordon had thought for a while there—before Bruce—that trying might not be worth it after all.

"Should have known Harvey was the—what did you call him?—White Knight." Wayne sounded vindictive. Gordon knew he was imagining it, but it didn't matter. The words still hit like blows. "Should have known Batman was bad news. Harvey never had to lie. Never had to hide any part of his face. It was true, what the Joker said about Batman—"

"Wasn't Rachel Dawes at that fundraiser?" Gordon said suddenly.

"Rachel?" What Gordon had imagining as spite in Wayne's voice fell away. Ash dropped from Wayne's cigarette, unattended. Wayne stared.

"Dawes," Gordon repeated. He'd thought of it before, just never needed a reason to find out before. Now he had reason, even if it wasn't a fair one. "You mentioned a Rachel before."

"Did I?" Wayne's voice was distant.

"My people had to file the report on what happened at your hotel during that fundraiser," Gordon explained. "Joker threw Dawes out the window. Batman saved her."

"That was Batman's fault." Wayne sounded dull now. "He should never have . . ."

"You were friends," Gordon guessed. "You and Dawes. I remember now, in the papers. Her mother worked for yours."

"Long time ago."

"But Dent was the one who was going to marry her."

"Engaged," Wayne said. "Not married."

That was hurting him, Gordon saw, and he didn't care. He was glad. It didn't matter Wayne didn't know, hadn't been trying to hurt him. Gordon just wanted to get back some of his own. "She would have married him. He was so good, remember?" _That was why you wanted to fuck him, because of her—_ Gordon didn't say, because he was being cruel, but he didn't have it in him to be that cruel.

"They're dead," Wayne said. More ash fell off his cigarette. He looked at it as if he'd forgotten the butt was there. He stubbed it out.

"Like you said, it's a real tragedy," Gordon said. "I knew her longer than I knew Dent, you know. More closely, anyway. Because she was always fighting. Even before she got out of school."

"She was . . ." Wayne began, but didn't finish.

"She and Dent would have been perfect." Gordon drove it in deeper. "Honest and just—she was more so than anyone. No surprise she loved Dent. Someone who was honest. Who could face her. Face themselves. Someone who wasn't afraid—"

"That's enough," Wayne said softly. He got out of bed, looked around for his shoes.

Gordon immediately felt guilty. "Wayne," he began.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Jim," Wayne said, and it was the first time Gordon remembered Wayne sounding annoyed at him. "Can't you for once just call me Bruce?"

He walked out before Gordon could call him anything.

* * *

Wayne didn't stay away. Nor did he seem angry, when he came again several nights later.

Gordon thought he probably should apologize for something, or explain that the Joker case and Dent and everything that had happened had been a big part of his divorce, or tell Wayne he could be loved just as he was. Instead he said, "Bruce."

Wayne smiled the smile Gordon had begun to suspect only a special few got. It was smaller and shier somehow, and almost kind of sweet; it meant they were going to fuck like rabbits, really down and dirty rabbits.

Besides cologne, the press was still fascinated by Wayne's girls. Almost every week was someone different, usually models with the occasional movie star or champion tennis player thrown in. Once it was a marine biologist on a nature channel, but next week it was back to a pop star.

Gordon never bothered about it all that much. He was fairly certain Wayne came to him for something different than what he got from whomever else. It was the only thing that explained why Wayne hadn't lost interest yet. Gordon had known from the beginning what Wayne was.

But a few weeks later, Gordon suddenly did notice who Wayne was kissing in the tabloids, because it was a man. Then it was on the magazine covers, then on the second page of the _Gotham Times_. Wayne had gone to another runway show, only hadn't ended up taking home any of the models strutting down the strip. He'd taken home the fashion designer, whom the press and paparazzi revealed to be a slender man with a buzz cut and flamboyant leather pants, older than Wayne and French.

Gordon wasn't jealous. If he had been he'd also have to be jealous of the no doubt hundreds of girls Wayne had kissed on covers and apparently taken home, and that sounded like far too much effort. But he had always assumed so many of Wayne's issues and complications stemmed from being a hopelessly closeted bisexual. He'd even wondered whether Wayne was all that interested in women at all, seeing as how he never seemed to stick with them, and he'd stuck with Gordon.

There seemed so much fear in Wayne, such need for punishment and masochism. Gordon thought it made a sad sort of sense, if the very thing Wayne felt the need to be punished for was the very fact of wanting it so much. There were the bruises, and the Wayne liked to be talked to. Most of all there was the way Wayne was so secretive about his relationship with Gordon, the way it was always in Gordon's territory, as if Wayne could shake it off and try to forget about it. Gordon had always thought it was shame. The way Wayne would come to him sometimes after his lavish parties, looking so disheveled and seeming so needy, had seemed to confirm it. It was as though Wayne had tried to deny what he was, and couldn't.

But there didn't seem to be shame in Wayne's short-lived affair with Avery Follet, the designer. Follet left Wayne's penthouse in the mornings in broad dawn; they tongued in front of cameras. When asked whether they were sleeping together, Wayne reportedly said, "Not really. It's hard to sleep when there's a guy who f—s like a machine right beside you in bed. A well-oiled machine," he added, and winked.

Of course, it was a huge issue in the media. The press went on and on in heated debates about whether Wayne was gay, and how homosexuality was defined, and how prevalent it was. They asked whether it was okay now to be gay, and how dangerous was it to come out, and why Wayne didn't seem concerned in the least.

Gordon had wondered at first, when he first saw the headlines, whether Wayne was doing it because of him. Because he had said Wayne was afraid, couldn't face himself. But Gordon soon concluded he was being egocentric again. It seemed clear that what the papers were calling "coming out," and Wayne kept calling, "screwing around", was no traumatic process for Wayne.

Though there were hate mail and death threats and a public protests featuring opposing agendas, Wayne just seemed terribly amused by all of it. He laughed when they shoved the microphones in his face, and said, "I don't get what the big deal is. I thought everyone appreciated first class a—." When he was told that not everyone appreciated male ass, Wayne said, "Really? Huh. Because that was not the case with the boys at Rosford Academy. Or at Princeton. Or the guys in the tennis club, the riding society, or hell, every party I throw. Also, models, politicians and judges. But I don't do guy rockstars. They're horrible lays. Always wanted to do a priest, though."

Gordon sometimes thought comments like this meant even if Wayne's relationship with Follet wasn't meant to overcome his own fears, they were meant to overcome society's. For a while he thought maybe this was Wayne's next project, teaching the world homosexuality was perfectly natural, something even this fascinating celebrity engaged in; it didn't make him any less of a person.

But Wayne laughed so much, and was so flippant about the whole thing. He seemed to think it very funny whenever someone mentioned gay rights, and never endorsed a single cause. In the end, Gordon had to conclude Wayne didn't actually have an agenda, other than to do whatever the hell he wanted whenever and however he pleased, and not give a damn what anyone else thought of it.

Which made Gordon wonder in a way he hadn't before just what made Wayne tick. Wayne broke it off with Follet after five days. Gordon never mentioned it, just as he never mentioned Wayne's other peccadilloes, and Wayne didn't seem any different for the sudden resurgence of media attention.

But Wayne still showed up at all hours, still secret and still needy. He still seemed to have a need to torture himself for reasons Gordon didn't understand; he still didn't seem to think himself good enough, for what.

It made Gordon think about Rachel Dawes more than he ever had before.

Once Wayne showed up again around four a.m., when Gordon had been in bed for hours. Gordon stood there in a wife beater and boxers, and it was like a repeat of last time Wayne had shown up at a similar time, but for the bruise forming on Wayne's jaw. Wayne's eyes were dark rimmed with more than just fatigue—the eyeliner or whatever boy models wore these days. It was smudged around as if someone had tried to clean it off and failed, and Wayne's suit was in more of a disarray than ever.

"What can I say," Wayne said, with Gordon standing there staring. "I tried to find someone younger."

It was similar enough to the last time Wayne had come at such an hour, looking such a mess, that Gordon knew exactly what he was referencing. But this time, Gordon didn't turn him away. He merely opened the door wider.

Wayne wavered, then stumbled in.

"There's sweats if you want them," Gordon told him lightly, when they were in the bedroom. "I just put them in the drawer. I'm going to sleep."

Wayne sat down on the bed. "This is good." Swinging up his legs, he got inside the covers and lay back.

Gordon watched him for a moment. By the time Gordon took off the slippers he'd put on to go to the door, turned out the light, and climbed into bed, Wayne was fast asleep beside him. Gordon still had gotten the new mattress, but Wayne was in the middle—close, and so warm. Gordon stopped thinking about where Wayne might have been and what he might have done, and went to sleep instead.

In the morning Gordon woke to warm wet around his cock. He groaned, but Wayne just kept going, and Gordon couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this good. He'd slept so well, Wayne like the dead beside him. It was so warm, and Wayne had him down his throat, and sun was just peeking through the shades.

Wayne was under the covers, so Gordon was mostly clutching comforter when he came, and it was a shock to see Wayne's face after that. His eyes were bloodshot, still lined black; the bit of light look like it pained him. His dress clothes looked sharp and uncomfortable; his hair had product in it still, making it clumpy and grimed-looking. The bruise on his jaw had changed to ugly, violent purple.

"Mm." Wayne licked his lips, though he hadn't missed a drop. "That was nice."

Gordon hauled him up and kissed him, soft, careful of Wayne's bruise. He licked Wayne's lips, then his tongue was inside and thick. Still gentle, Gordon kept thinking about how horrible Wayne looked and that he didn't care; he just wanted to make it better. Gordon moved down his neck, avoiding the bruise, lipping and mouthing over Wayne's growing stubble.

"So fucking nice," Wayne murmured, and it was not another ten seconds before he was asleep again.

Gordon sighed and got up, making sure the covers were still over Wayne.

He went for his regular jog, his regular shitty coffee at Dinesh's. Picked up the cigarettes and a bag of frozen peas, jogged back, thinking Wayne would probably not be up. He was right, and Gordon wished he'd bothered to get his own coffee maker after the divorce, because he'd have liked to put something on for when Wayne woke. Instead Gordon put the peas in the freezer and went for a shower.

He heard the door open when he was naked inside and it was steamy. Wayne had to piss or something, steal Gordon's toothbrush again probably. Gordon let the water run over him, listening to the little sounds. "Peas in the freezer," he said, when he couldn't hear any more. "For your face. Helps the swelling."

Gordon heard the door again and thought Wayne was gone. He put his hands on the wall on either side of the hot/cold, not washing the quick, efficient way he usually washed, just standing there feeling the heat. Then the shower door opened. Gordon looked over his shoulder; Wayne stood in the escaping steam, still in those sharp, wrinkled clothes.

"You'll ruin your suit," Gordon said, as Wayne stepped inside.

The slacks and dress shirt were soon wet through, and Wayne was kissing him, pushing him against the wall and stealing the hot water just like he stole the blankets. Gordon kissed him back, not gentle like before, biting. He bit Wayne's mouth and he bit Wayne's bruise, pulling the abused skin into his mouth and sucking hard.

"Yeah," Wayne said. "Oh, God." He pulled Gordon's hand up under his soaking shirt, and Gordon was pretty sure it was the first time he got to touch Wayne's bare torso. Wayne pressed his hand into a spot just between two ribs and then hissed; Gordon knew there was another bruise there, so he pushed in hard with his knuckles. "Right there," Wayne panted. "Christ, right there. Use your nails."

Gordon didn't really have fingernails to speak of, but he pressed them into the soft spot on Wayne's midriff, and Wayne made a soft, choked sound. Gordon went on scraping his teeth against the bruise on Wayne's jaw, and wondered where the bruises came from. He'd concluded before Wayne kept on his clothes because he liked it rough with whomever else he slept around with, and was used to hiding the evidence. Maybe Wayne really had been with someone younger just before coming here. Maybe it had been Follet, though according to the papers, that had been over nearly a month. Maybe Follet had come back; maybe it had ended badly.

Gordon still didn't care.

Wayne turned them around so his own back was the one up against the wall, fumbling with his wet pants. He pulled them down farther than he usually did, revealing more of himself than he usually did except for when he wasn't facing Gordon. "Here," Wayne said, and moved Gordon's other hand to a bruise under his hipbone, at the crease of his thigh.

Gordon pressed in on that spot too, knuckles then nails, and Wayne hissed again. "Yeah, hurt me," he said. "Hurt me so good."

Then again, Gordon thought, as he went down on his knees. Maybe it wasn't someone younger, wasn't Follet, wasn't someone else at all. Maybe Wayne did it to himself. Gordon had considered signs of injections; maybe it was a completely different kind of self-abuse for which Wayne hid his arms and body.

Closer to eye level now, Gordon could see the bruise on the top of Wayne's thigh was irregularly shaped. It was sort of like a crescent moon facing down, as though something had shielded most of whatever caused the injury, only hurting this one, vulnerable spot. Gordon had seen enough to know how bizarre self infliction could be.

He put his mouth there, just under the hipbone, Wayne's hard cock close to the side of his face. When Gordon sucked the wet, bruised skin in his mouth, Wayne reacted as though it was cock anyway—a jerk of the hips, a fistful of Gordon's hair. "Yeah," Wayne said. "Oh God, Jim. Suck it. Suck it hard. God, yeah. Harder."

Gordon was working the bruise, breaking more blood vessels under the surface of the skin. He reached up to hurt the other bruise between Wayne's ribs, too, and Wayne said, "Teeth, Jim." Jim bit the bruise on Wayne's thigh, and then his other hand was at Wayne's balls, gentle, squeezing. The water was still beating down, hot and hard, and Gordon was drinking it against Wayne's abused skin.

There was a moment of fumbling with conditioner; then Gordon's fingers were slicked up and slipping into Wayne as his mouth still worked the bruise, so close to Wayne's cock. Then Wayne was angling his hips so his cock touched Gordon's rough cheek. Two shallow thrusts and it was enough friction; he was coming on Gordon's face. Gordon left off the bruise and let him do it.

Wayne was finishing and the water spray was washing off the come. It should have been degrading, looking up at someone with their jizz all over your face, but instead it was Wayne who looked degraded. There was something in his eyes that was painful, and he was fully clothed in a hot shower, wet hair in his face, still so very tired. He slid down the wall and pulled Gordon's face into his hands, kissing up what the shower had missed.

When Gordon was clean Wayne pulled away, eyes shut tight. Just sitting in wet clothes with water beating down on him. Gordon kissed him. "I'll get those sweats," he said. "And the peas."

He left Wayne alone, huddled on the floor of the shower.


	12. Chapter 12

Gordon bought the coffee maker, and begun to keep peas in the freezer, just in case.

Wayne didn't talk about the Police Foundation. Gordon didn't expect it, had been surprised when Wayne brought it up when they were talking about Dent. He'd thought Wayne probably didn't even remember it, or if he did, it'd be akin to remembering a weekend at an amusement park.

Wayne didn't talk about the bruises, either. He talked more about Ducard. He'd always done that, but what Wayne said now was new. "He's dead, you know. I killed him."

Gordon had been eating pasta at the time; he'd had to pause in the middle of a bite. "You do know you're talking to an officer of the law, right?" he'd said.

"I didn't kill him," Wayne amended. "But I didn't save him."

Gordon chewed and swallowed—steady, systematic things. "I'm a cop," he repeated. "You know how many I haven't saved?"

"This was different."

"You know how many I haven't saved because I didn't think they should be saved? How many I could have saved, but chose not to?"

Wayne watched for a while as Gordon kept steadily eating his pasta. "Let's fuck on the table again," Wayne said.

Wayne rarely talked about models any more, or his outrageous parties, about chrome or trailer hitches. He still talked about fast cars, but seemed far less interested in leather interiors and who was driving what than before, and far more interested in technicalities. In point of fact, when Wayne went on about horse power and gear shifts Gordon zoned about even more than he had when Wayne had talked about how many chicks dug fancy cars, until Wayne started making dirty jokes about pistons.

Wayne talked about his childhood, and school, and Alfred. He talked about Rachel, a subject which Gordon had assumed would be closed tight after the one time Wayne had blown up. He talked about his parents.

"Dad had a stethoscope," Wayne said one night, apropos of nothing. They were eating pizza in the living room and watching some nature program about caves. "He made house calls sometimes, so he'd bring it home. He even had one of those black bags." Wayne tossed his crust aside. "Stethoscope was one of the only things of theirs intact when the Manor burnt down."

Gordon ate his pizza. "Are you watching this?"

"Yeah. It's good. What, you don't like caves?" Wayne picked up another slice. "Dad would put it on my chest, hear my heart beat; I'd put it on his. He'd do it whenever I got sick, or injured. If I had a tooth ache." Wayne's eyes were on the program. "If I fell."

"Doesn't sound like a great cure," Gordon said, to be dry.

"But he did. I mean, with his patients. Broken bones, leukemia, birth defects. He always made them better somehow."

Gordon didn't know how to say his father couldn't save everyone too, so he kept on eating pizza.

"I loved her," Wayne said another time. "Rachel. We were going to get married."

Gordon also didn't know how to say he was pretty sure Dawes was going to marry Dent, so he didn't say that either.

"We knew each other so well when we were kids."

"Did she know you now?"

"She knew me," Wayne said. "Better than most. She was willing to wait."

Gordon didn't ask what for.

"To be more like her," Wayne said anyway. "I always wanted to be just like her when I grew up. She was the braver of us, when we were little. She was so good, and honest. She always did the right thing. Even when the right thing doesn't make a difference, doesn't change anything, doesn't make the world any better. Her heart was big enough to do it anyway."

Gordon was silent for a while, poured them out more gin. They were playing blackjack; they were gambling. "Barbara waited," he said finally. "She was waiting all the while. I always thought there would be time. For her and me. For the kids, to be a father. When she thought I was dead—I wasn't really, of course. But she saw it. I saw it: I'm not going to change."

Wayne played a card. "It's not as hopeless as all that."

"No," Gordon said. "It's not. Because I don't want to change. This is who I am."

Gordon found himself telling stories from his school days, the boys he'd fucked around with at the academy, trouble he'd gotten into, meeting Barbara. Once, Gordon found himself talking about Wayne's Police Foundation again. "You could still try," he told Wayne.

"Why?" Wayne didn't seem interested. "Didn't work the first time."

"Grand gestures . . . I've found they don't work so well. Putting it together, that was a grand gesture. So is twenty million dollars. Both are nice. Neither last."

"Going to lecture me now, Jim?" Wayne was standing by the window, fists thrust deep in pockets.

Gordon hesitated. "Just something I realized. Recently. Even in the force, it's not the big cases, even the lunatics like Joker. Especially the lunatics like Joker. The things we do—the things I do, grand gestures, like faking my death. In the end they're a stop gap, impermanent. And we do enough of those things, we hurt people we love, and eventually we become just like him.

"It's not the big things that make the work I do worth it. It's the little things, day to day, it's something I build over time. May not even make any difference in my own time, what I'm trying to do for the department. But I believe in a better Gotham. And the most important thing is I believe you can't do it alone."

"That's funny," Wayne said flatly. "I was just about to say the same thing about fucking."

Gordon swallowed a sigh. "Come here, son."

Wayne didn't for the longest moment in Gordon's memory. When he did come, his face was drawn, a blank. His eyes were dark and firmly conveyed nothing. Gordon swallowed a sigh. "Okay, Bruce," he said, and kissed him.

Didn't ask for any more.

* * *

The next time Gordon saw Wayne was the first time he'd seen Wayne in public since Wayne hadn't signed the Police Foundation charter.

Gordon was at the annual spring benefit down at the Grand Hotel. The benefit was smaller than usual, with the few benefactors slowly dwindling to even less, but it was just as stuffy. Gordon had used a smoke as a chance for fresh air; first year at the Grand, seeking escape, he'd found a large patio off the twenty-third floor roof with a garden. It was usually quiet there, and pretty, enough to give Gordon the will to face socialites and businessmen for another twenty minutes.

He had to go down several floors and around a wedding and some other event going on, and that was how he saw Wayne.

Years ago Barbara had made Gordon watch _Gone With The Wind_. Gordon had only gotten through the first half hour or so, but it had been enough to see Scarlett O'Hara at a picnic of some kind, with over twenty men fluttering about her, trying to get her sweets or cake or attention, some kind of promise of a dance later that evening.

Bruce Wayne looked exactly like Scarlett O'Hara, Gordon thought, only surrounded mostly by women—though there were a few men floating the periphery, too, now that Gordon noticed. Wayne was sitting on a stone bench in the patio garden, girls on either side, some behind, some sitting at his feet, and more jockeying for position. He was holding a little plate and laughing, and everyone was listening to that rich, happy sound.

Gordon saw him, long enough to think about that time watching _Gone With the Wind_, but not much longer, and turned and went in the other direction.

Wayne said something already out of Gordon's hearing, but he could hear the laughter of women floating to follow him, carefree and light.

Gordon hadn't expected to be accosted, considering the public distance Wayne had kept. It was part of the reason he had done Wayne the courtesy of leaving him be. That, and it was one thing watching Wayne with other people on TV, reading about his exploits in the papers. It was another having to watch.

But apparently, Wayne was after something in the direction Gordon was going, either that or Wayne had seen him on the patio, because Gordon turned a corner and Wayne's voice sailed toward him. "Well, if it isn't Commissioner Gordon."

When Gordon slowly turned, he found Wayne standing there with no less than three women hanging off of him, all of them young and beautiful. Gordon shifted in his rented tux and said, "Hello, Mr. Wayne."

"I know the Commissioner here from a project." Wayne smiled down at the blonde on his right.

"What kind of project?" she humored him, smiling also in a devious way that had nothing to do with the conversation.

"Some charity thing. I forget. He's a policeman, you know," Wayne said.

"Really?" the Asian woman on Wayne's left said. "Does he have a gun?"

"Yeah, can we see it?" the blonde asked.

Wayne grinned, indulging them. "Can we see your gun, Commissioner?"

"What sort of charity?" the third woman piped up. "I remember seeing you two in the papers, now you mention it."

Wayne looked at Gordon steadily, still smiling, that small smile Gordon so loved. "I can't even be bothered to remember. It wasn't worth it. Waste of time."

"You were in the papers with him?" the blonde asked skeptically, sizing Gordon up, as if wondering when Wayne failed her whether Gordon could get her face on television instead.

"If you'll excuse me," Gordon said. "I have another function."

"Function?" Wayne snorted with laughter; so did one of the other women. "Oh, Commissioner, don't go yet. You haven't met my friends.

Gordon paused. He was still polite to a fault.

"This one's Amber," Wayne explained, "and that one's Sylvia." Then he looked down to the blonde on his right. "And this one's . . . This one's . . ." He was moving his face closer to hers. "I forget." His eyes slid to Gordon as he moved the final fraction and kissed her.

Gordon later found out some little starlet was visiting Gotham, and she had invited what had to be all of Gotham's young rich and beautiful for an afternoon party in her suite. Gordon didn't really care right then because Wayne's tongue was exploring the blonde's tonsils. Wayne was kissing her long and slow, eyes closed now, completely engrossed by cleaning her crowns, apparently. Gordon could see muscles in their throats working. Wayne had a handful of her ass, slowly squeezing and releasing, and one of her shimmery yellow hair. Mostly Gordon was thinking of how in some spots on his own head were going bald.

Wayne pulled away from the woman wetly.

"Nikki," the blonde supplied helpfully.

"Yeah." Wayne licked his lips, exactly the way he licked them after sucking Gordon off. Then he looked at Gordon and smiled.

"Pleasure," Gordon said tonelessly. "Excuse me." He turned to go.

He needed—he didn't know what he needed, but he thought if he found a bathroom he might throw up.

In the event hall public bathroom he did no such thing. He found himself instead washing his hands, glancing up and being stayed by his reflection in the mirror. His neck was still scrawny and the bow-tie still made him look like a fraud; the moustache was still too bushy and the glasses hid his eyes. He had lines around his mouth he hadn't notice before, and the furrows in the forehead were growing permanent, but in the end, it was who he was. Gordon turned the tap off.

"You shouldn't be here," Wayne said.

How Wayne managed to come up behind him unseen when Gordon was looking in a mirror was beyond him, but Gordon had expected it somehow. "It's an annual charity," Gordon said. There were all sorts of things Gordon could have said about charities, remembered and forgotten, but he would mention none. He took some paper towels. "The fund-raiser, I mean. They have it every year. You could've paid more attention. You could have even asked—"

"I don't care." Wayne pulled him around and then pushed him back into the paper towel dispenser, and then was kissing him.

Heaven help him; Gordon kissed him back.

"You hear me?" Wayne rasped again against his mouth. He was fumbling with Gordon's pants. "I don't fucking care any more. Fuck," he said again, when he couldn't yank Gordon's pants down.

"Suspenders," Gordon pointed out.

"Jesus Christ," Wayne grunted. "I'm going to fuck you."

"Get in the stall."

"Here." Wayne was kissing him again, pushing hands into Gordon's pants without taking them off. "I'll fuck you right here. I'm going to fuck you so hard, you won't even care."

"If you were so keen on people seeing," Gordon said, "it would've been my throat you had your tongue in out there. Get in the stall."

"I don't care about the goddamn people. _Fuck_ the goddamn fucking people." But Wayne pulled Gordon into the stall with him and pulled the door closed. He pushed Gordon against the door.

"Good boy," Gordon said, and kissed him back.

"Shit," Wayne pulled back long enough to say, then was pushing in with tongue and teeth.

Gordon struggled out of his coat, baring the rented shirt with the starch and matching buttons, the stupid suspenders.

"You," Wayne accused, "wearing that. Fuck." He jerked off the suspenders.

"Gimme the lube," Gordon said.

"Don't have it." Wayne just kept kissing him, reached in Gordon's pants.

"I thought—nevermind." Gordon unfastened Wayne's belt.

"Fucking suspenders." Wayne had pulled back to mutter, now that he was fisting Gordon's cock. "Fucking _tux_. I can't believe they let you walk around—like _that_. Shouldn't let you wear clothes at all. You'd just be naked. Naked and bare and mine, and I'd fuck you right in front of them; I'd show them—"

Gordon had gotten Wayne's belt undone, pulled aside the pants, was reaching past the boxers, which Wayne rarely wore. "At least you have the condoms," he thought to say.

"No. Don't have them either." As if just remembering Gordon's mouth, Wayne was kissing him again.

Gordon paused in his very important business. "What would you have done with Nikki?"

"Who?"

Somehow, Gordon didn't think Wayne was joking at all. He pulled away from Wayne's mouth, still warm and eager against his own. "You didn't bring anything," he reminded him.

Wayne slid to his knees. "I didn't know you were going to be here," he said. "I thought the fundraiser was at the Cape."

"Used to be at the Cape," Gordon said, as Wayne's mouth enveloped his cock. He put his head back, thudding it against the tile of the walls. It might be a slightly higher class hotel, but it was still the men's room; he was still getting sucked off in the men's room. He'd arrested people for less public indecency. Gordon closed his eyes and put his hands in Wayne's hair. "Got moved to the Grand a few years back."

Wayne pulled off, a disgusting sucking noise. Anyone coming into the bathroom would have to know exactly what that was. "Should have told me," Wayne said, and moved his mouth under Gordon's cock.

"Why?" The mouth was sucking Gordon's balls, and Gordon's own mouth was open, hands tightening in Wayne's hair. "Why should I think you'd care?"

"Fuck you, Jim." Wayne replaced his mouth with his hand, his warm palm, talented fingers.

"Thought you were going to," Gordon snapped.

"I'm going to." The hand kept softly squeezing. "First you're going to come down my throat."

He swallowed Gordon down again while the back of Gordon's head hit the wall again. "Good," Gordon said. "There's a good boy. Taking care of Daddy first."

It wasn't long before he was coming, saying, "Suck it, yeah, just like that, swallow all of it. Suck it, son. Good boy. Such a good boy.

Wayne surfaced soon, licking his lips. Stood, and pulled the back of his hand across his mouth, catching the dribble on his chin and licking that up too. Then he was kissing Gordon, Gordon tasting himself on Wayne's tongue.

"This bathroom isn't too fancy for a condom dispenser, is it?" Wayne asked, and opened the stall door. He didn't even bother to cover his open pants and hard cock before he strode out.

Gordon was picking up his rented coat and hanging it on the hook in the stall when Wayne came back. "Got any quarters?"

"Bruce, you're a billionaire." Gordon rolled his eyes, and fished out some quarters.

"I don't carry money."

"You don't carry anything, apparently," Gordon said, while Bruce disappeared again. "You're such a liar."

A moment later Wayne was back with a condom the bathroom wasn't too fancy to provide, and the bottle of hand lotion it was fancy enough to provide. His fingers were covered in the lotion and pushing into Gordon. "Want you good and wet," Wayne said.

"Shut it," Gordon said, because the door was opening; someone else was coming in the bathroom.

As they listened to the stranger piss, Wayne pushed into Gordon, a long, slow agonizing thrust through which Gordon wasn't sure he could keep quiet. Then there was the telltale flush, with Wayne right up against his ear whispering, "Yeah, you're so fucking tight." Then a pause, as Wayne thrust again, then the sound of a tap, with Wayne whispering, "Always so tight." Then the stranger was done washing his hands, Wayne pushing in again, was drying his hands, Wayne pulling out, was leaving the restroom.

"Fuck," Wayne said, and pushed in again, hard. "Fuck. I wish we'd have been out there. Wish that guy could have seen me fucking you against the wall. He wouldn't see much of you; I could cover you. He would just know I was fucking you." He kissed Gordon then, hard, desperate. "Everyone would know I was fucking you."

"Wouldn't be a good image," Gordon grunted, still accommodating Wayne's cock, getting used to the feel of it, opening himself up to it.

"Don't care."

"I meant my image."

"I don't care."

"Yes. You do."

Wayne kissed him again, tongue echoing the thrust of his body. "You're the only thing I have," he said, pulling away. "The one good thing. The only person on the outside with any fucking—decency—"

He slammed Gordon back into the wall, and Gordon didn't think he was decent. He'd faked his death, lied to his wife. Lost his children, let his family think he'd lost them forever. Lied to everyone, betrayed his one loyal ally. And Gordon had let Wayne lie to everyone, too, let Wayne keep him like a dirty secret, let Wayne use him, let Wayne hurt him and then fuck him against a wall in a public restroom.

"—only one I can trust," Wayne was saying, "and I can't let them _have_ you. I just want one thing, one thing I can keep for myself."

Gordon meant to tell him to shut up, but all that came out was a soft shushing noise, and Gordon thought Wayne was wrong about the decency, but Gordon couldn't help it sometimes. Anyway, what came out next was the same. "That's alright," he said. "You have me. You'll always have me, son."

Wayne convulsed, the way he always did at that.

"Go ahead and fuck me, son. Nice and hard. Make me yours, your big cock in me. Anything you want, kid."

"You're the only one," Wayne said, still thrusting into him, unsteady, irregular.

"I know," Gordon said. "I know."

"I'm sorry," Wayne choked. "I'm so fucking—_sorry_—"

"Don't," Gordon said. "Proud of you, son. Always gonna be so proud of you. No matter what."


	13. Chapter 13

The turn out to the fundraiser was dismal, though the anonymous twenty million dollar donation earlier in the year more than made up for it. Still, the next day, Gordon was assaulted by paperwork, meetings at City Hall, stalls in the Gambol case. They made no headway there, but Gordon still went to the warehouse that evening to see Batman.

"How did you know to come?" Gordon said, when the shadows moved in such a way. He was holding a half-smoked cigarette that did nothing to illuminate the darkness.

The shadows held their silence.

"No breaks in the case," Gordon pointed out. "No new information. No reason for you to be here."

The shadows stirred again. "Why did you?" came the rasp.

Gordon shrugged. "Thought it would be a good idea to tell you that it's a bad idea to fuck in bathrooms."

Stillness. Silence.

"I've known for a while," Gordon went on. "Not long enough, considering. But you're always in the dark. I never even see your goddamn jaw, much less your eyes." He took a draw on the cigarette. "If you want to know, it wasn't until you started talking about Dawes. I thought she couldn't mean the same thing to two such different people."

"Gordon." There was a warning in that tone.

"I meant what I said." Gordon was still smoking that cigarette. It had all come on so gradually, this revelation. He knew it meant things should change, but he knew Batman wouldn't. But Bruce . . . . Gordon tossed his cigarette on the ground and stubbed it out with his shoe. He came closer.

Closer than he'd ever been to Batman.

"I meant what I said," Gordon said. "I'll do anything. Take anything. I'll be there for you, if that's what you need. I won't be there when you don't want. But you don't need to hide from me, is what I mean to say." Gordon could hear the croak in his voice, the timbre breaking. "I won't if you won't. Don't hide from me. Don't—run away."

Gordon was close enough to see his jaw now, after all. That beloved, clenched jaw, the longed for, tightened mouth. Wayne was almost a different person in that suit, something stoic and unyeilding who wanted and needed no one, someone who could put aside the yearning Wayne seemed to feel so keenly at times. Gordon still wanted to kiss him, put his lips against those hard lines. Maybe he would have, only Bruce still wore that mask.

In Wayne's eyes was fear.

"Bruce," Gordon said.

Batman disappeared.

* * *

It took several days. Gordon got home and the door was unlocked, which was unexpected, because even though Wayne had the key he rarely used it.

Inside, Wayne was on the couch, looking at the medal Gordon had won, way back when. It was framed; Gordon hadn't seen it in ages.

"I drank all your beer," Wayne said.

"That's alright." Gordon walked over to him.

"I said I would."

Gordon yanked him up.

"We should talk," Wayne said.

Gordon was kissing him. "Not until I see you naked." Wayne stared at him blankly, and Gordon started pulling apart his shirt. "Come on. All of it. Off now."

Wayne did nothing to help as Gordon got the shirt open and pushed it down his shoulders. "Why, James, you kinky bastard."

"I want to see you. I've wanted to see you for so long."

He got Wayne's shirt off, then yanked down his pants, underwear. There was something defensive in Wayne's posture, something revealed as well in the guarded sarcasm of his next comment. "Are you going to keep your glasses on while we fuck?"

"Yes. I'm going to look at you the whole time."

Something passed across Wayne's face, something like lust but also something like uncertainty. This was the unmasking, Gordon realized. He'd already done it, in that warehouse with Batman, but Wayne hadn't had to face him then.

"Good," Wayne said, smirking, because he was the best actor Gordon had ever seen. "Glasses are sexy."

"Come here." They were already close, but Gordon pulled him closer. "I'm going to touch every part of you. I'm going to kiss every part of you." His fingers were already digging into new bruises on Wayne's torso.

"Jim," Wayne rasped.

"Every part," Gordon repeated. "I want every part of you."

They went into the bedroom; they got on the bed. Wayne was pale, but looked colorful against Gordon's white sheets, not just the pink and gold play of his skin. There were so many bruises, more than Gordon thought that stupid suit would have allowed. There were scars, raised and rough, off-white against the bright. Everything was filled with so much light.

Gordon meant to look, but he had to touch. He couldn't stop; every part was new. He'd never gotten to touch, not this much, and Gordon hadn't known what he'd been missing. He felt like a starving man who hadn't known he was hungry until he saw a crust of bread; Bruce's skin was so smooth, and strong, the light hairs almost golden. He was so warm, oh God, he'd always been so warm, and Gordon wanted to kiss everywhere, too, lap him up like butter, cover those hurt spots as if he could make them better.

"This," Gordon said, "I want this," because he had found a scar newer than the rest. It was a scar Gordon knew well, because he had one like it in his left arm. It was low on Wayne's torso, on the side, where a bullet might have pierced the gaps in kevlar armor. Gordon kissed it, then brought his face up to Wayne's. "Tell me."

"Jim . . ." Wayne had been watching him but now his eyes slid away.

Gordon grabbed his chin, turned him back. Made him look him in the eyes. "Tell me," he said, that gentle voice which had succeeded in getting confessions out of murderers.

Wayne looked at him. Didn't take his eyes from him when he took Gordon's hand. Unexpectedly, Gordon's palm was dragged back over bare skin, and Gordon still thrilled at that silken touch, the light hair, the heat. "Here," Wayne said, and pressed Gordon's hand in, over the scar. "When you arrested Gambol."

"I thought that might have been it."

"Yeah?" Wayne's voice was harsh. "What did you think about Wayne?"

"Thought you got bored."

Wayne's hand still held Gordon's, still pressing in. "I could have signed the charter. I could have . . ." He seemed distracted by Gordon's buttons; Gordon was still wearing most of his clothes. Wayne unbuttoned three of them, stopped, and said, "But everyone would have seen I couldn't walk. I could have passed it off. Motorcycle accident. Fell when spelunking. But not you. I couldn't pass it off on you."

"Was I really so important?"

"Yes." Wayne opened the rest of Gordon's shirt.

Gordon took his shirt off. It felt strange to be the one pressed up against Wayne, to have his head on Wayne's chest. It should be the other way around, Bruce in Gordon's arms, but Gordon couldn't help it. He wanted to feel his face against Wayne's chest, mustache tickling Wayne's nipples; he wanted to hear Wayne's heart beat. "You stayed away," Gordon said finally. "After you got shot. You were back in the suit; you were Batman, but Bruce Wayne still didn't come."

Wayne put an uncertain hand in Gordon's hair. "Had to stagger it."

"And?"

"Jim." Wayne pulled Gordon up, pulling his hand up too until they were eye to eye again and Gordon's hand was on Wayne's heart. "I wanted to do that Foundation. I wanted to be that person. It's what Dad would have wanted. It's what Rachel would have wanted."

Gordon thought it might be nice. He'd thought it was nice with Harvey, to have an ally who wasn't a vigilante, who wasn't just one man against the world. Someone who could start to make things right in Gotham City, more than one man at a time. Someone who could lead the city into the light.

But that man wasn't Bruce Wayne, and Gordon wasn't so very disappointed. It wasn't him either; he'd dreamed of so many things he hadn't become. It was only now he was beginning to accept what he could be. "Maybe you should do what you want," Gordon said.

"Batman . . . isn't what they would have wanted." Wayne's hand was heavy and hot over Gordon's, over Wayne's heart. It was holding tight. "When I didn't sign the charter, I thought—you deserved better."

"So you gave up. You stayed away."

"I couldn't." Wayne shook his head. "I needed—you understood everything, even when you didn't, and you—you're so fucking _sane_, Jim. Everyone and everything in the world is crazy and you're—you're the only thing that makes any sense."

"I'm here. As long as you want."

"Gordon—"

"I told you. I don't need that much. I'm not Rachel Dawes." Gordon waved his cigarette. "I'm old. I'm divorced. I'm not someone starting their life out. I like living by myself now. I like my routines. I don't want to live in your mansions; I don't want your stupid cars. I don't want to have to deal with the press and I don't want to marry you."

"What about Batman?"

"I'll fuck him too," Gordon said, reaching at last for Wayne's cock. "Right now. I wouldn't want to wait."


End file.
